J Vet Sci.  2024 Mar;25(2):e28. 10.4142/jvs.23323.

Implementation of point-of-care platforms for rapid detection of porcine circovirus type 2

• Ke CH
• Du MY
• Hsieh WJ
• Lin CC
• Ting JM
• Chiou MT
• Lin CN

• KMID: 2554569
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4142/jvs.23323

Abstract

Background
Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) infection is ubiquitous around the world. Diagnosis of the porcine circovirus-associated disease requires clinic-pathological elements together with the quantification of viral loads. Furthermore, given pig farms in regions lacking access to sufficient laboratory equipment, developing diagnostic devices with high accuracy, accessibility, and affordability is a necessity.
Objectives
This study aims to investigate two newly developed diagnostic tools that may satisfy these criteria.
Methods
We collected 250 specimens, including 170 PCV2-positive and 80 PCV2-negative samples. The standard diagnosis and cycle threshold (Ct) values were determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Then, two point-of-care (POC) diagnostic platforms, convective polymerase chain reaction (cPCR, qualitative assay: positive or negative results are shown) and EZtargex (quantitative assay: Ct values are shown), were examined and analyzed.
Results
The sensitivity and specificity of cPCR were 88.23% and 100%, respectively; the sensitivity and specificity of EZtargex were 87.65% and 100%, respectively. These assays also showed excellent concordance compared with the qPCR assay (κ = 0.828 for cPCR and κ = 0.820 for EZtargex). The statistical analysis showed a great diagnostic power of the EZtargex assay to discriminate between samples with different levels of positivity.
Conclusions
The two point-of-care diagnostic platforms are accurate, rapid, convenient and require little training for PCV2 diagnosis. These POC platforms can discriminate viral loads to predict the clinical status of the animals. The current study provided evidence that these diagnostics were applicable with high sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of PCV2 infection in the field.

Keyword

Porcine circovirus; molecular diagnostics; point-of-care testing; point-of-care; pigs