Diagnostics of cattle leucosis by using an biosensor based on surface plasmon resonance phenomenon

The virus of cattle enzootic leucosis leads to high losses in rural economy, implies forced slaughter of sick animals, loss of the breed, decrease in productivity, violation of reproduction processes in industrial breeding and livestock sector. Among cattle infection diseases, leucosis takes the leading position and comprises 57% of all the other nosological forms, if taking into account severity of injuries in organs, large-scale character of these diseases and economic aftermath. This disease can be transferred from animals to men faring with infected milk. The existing methods for cattle vital diagnostics are long-term and weakly-sensitive (AGID), or very complex and expensive (ELISA and PCR). In this work the alternative method for diagnostics is the method based on the SPR phenomenon was proposed. It has been shown for the first time that the SPR method enables to detect antibodies to cattle leucosis virus in the diluted solution (1 vol.%) of weakly positive blood serum taken from sick animals, which cannot be made using the methods AGID and ELISA – in this case the serum is considered as negative, and the tested animal is considered as healthy, although it is carrier of virus.