# Alert for Ohio goat owners - CAE testing



## grandmajo (May 22, 2008)

I wanted to give everyone a heads up on CAE testing performed at Ohio State University. I'm sharing a friend's experience (with her permission of course).

She purchased 3 goats from a breeder who also shows. The breeder stated that she practiced CAE prevention, but did not test her goats for CAE. So, when she and her hubby got the goats home they took the goats to the vet's office for blood draws to check for CAE. The vet sent the blood to Ohio State University, and they claim to do the ELISA test for CAE. Come to find out, they just send the blood to the Ohio Department of Ag for the tests.

It took almost 2 weeks to get the test results back and here's what her results said. Eva had a "weak" positive from Ohio Dept. of AG and Rachel and Eclipse had a "negative" from Ohio Dept. of AG. She called Ohio State to enquire what a "weak positive" meant and what the exact titers were. They told her that they didn't have titer info, but that although the goat tested a weak positive, she was still a positive.

So, she called me and asked for advice and I suggested that they retest but use BioTracking this time. I went over and taught them how to draw blood and they sent their samples off the next day (Tuesday) and on Friday they had their test results:

Eva was positive at 78 titers. (I don't consider that a weak positive!)
Rachel was a positive with 60 titers. (Ohio State said that she was negative!)
Eclipse was a negative with 25 titers.


I'm posting this so that you can make an informed decision about testing for your herd. I would trust CAE test results from BioTracking anytime, I'm not so sure I can say the same about the ones from OSU/ODA.


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## DostThouHaveMilk (Oct 25, 2007)

Our first tests were done through Ohio State (and through our vet). This was back in 2006, I believe. Our first couple tested positive but also showed signs. We did a whole herd test. A couple of the goats that tested negative through that test then tested positive through Biotracking two years (?) later.
I use Biotracking for my testing. I had two does tested through the State lab and the vet at the request of their purchaser. I was not pulling my own blood at that stage. I learned the next year.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

I would never trust a test from a state lab, and would call the lab to ensure they are using ELISA. If they are really using the ELISA at that lab, something must have been seriously wrong with it or something. I had a vet pull blood and he sent the tests to a state lab that used the AGID test...3 showed up as negative on that test, but their titers (from Biotracking) were 65, 66, and 88. Exactly how high would the titer need to be to show positive on the other test, I don't know, but these sure seem up there to me. And scary that any test would show them as negative, so there are probably people out there with positive goats trusting this completely inaccurate test!


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## WGF (Jul 1, 2009)

I live in Ohio and always use biotracking in my opinion they are the best. Dont think I would trust anyone else.


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## ksalvagno (Jul 8, 2011)

I have found the state lab is great for fecals. My vet doesn't do her own fecals anymore and sends them to the state lab. But very questionable for anything else. I used Pan Am Vet Lab in Texas and was happy with them.


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## Ziggy (Nov 13, 2009)

Rather than say not to trust state labs you should go by the test they use. Washington state was considered the gold standard for a long time. They use ELiSA as does the State of North Carilina -- in fact I happen to know that NC gets their test kits from WA.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

There are very few companies who make Elissa tests. 99% of them come from France, they are used for livestock and humans for HIV, OPP, CAE etc.... So it then becomes reader error. What I don't understand is why titers are not given with all the testing. Vicki


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## ChuckAtBioTracking (Dec 7, 2010)

Our ELISA's are "homegrown" right here in the Inland NorthWest! No French kits for us! And nothing is farmed out. We even isolate the proteins used for making the antibodies and use our own bunnies for antibody production.

Chuck at BioTracking


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Chuck, how many years has biotracking been in business now, doing goat CAE tests? I know you don't have time to always answer questions on the forum but it would be super cool if you took on all the CAE missinformation, damn especially on facebook! Vicki


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## ChuckAtBioTracking (Dec 7, 2010)

Ha! - well I was cleaning out my email and noticed an old one I sent to the forum, asking for permission to join. I don't recall getting a response and forgot about the forum until now. I went ahead and tried what I had requested for login and password and VOILA! Here I am!

So I'll make an effort to check the forum at least once a week - I don't know if you want to run a sticky with "Ask BioTracking" or if I'm just setting myself up for something. I'll let you all decide. In the meantime I've been working on a set of CAE articles for a newsletter type publication - it's just with grant submission deadlines and some patents being filed, that has taken a bit of a backburner. I'll dig it back up and get working on it.

Chuck at BioTracking
[email protected]


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## nightskyfarm (Sep 7, 2009)

My vet explained the difference between the Elisa and the AGID and the only thing that sticks right out is time. The AGID takes much longer to get results than the Elisa, so please point out the pros and cons of each. The AGID is the only test I can have performed here at any VA State Lab and I have had tests run at WSU and at Cornell.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

AGID test does not have as many false positives, but more false negatives than ELISA. ELISA can have more false positives because it is more sensitive than AGID and other antibodies can cause a reaction in the test. Because of the greater sensitivity, though, there are fewer false negatives.


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## Rosesgoats (Apr 22, 2011)

You won't get titers with the AGID test because it only shows a positive or a negative. There can be slight positives also and many false negatives with it. The reason for this is the design of the test. When you do an AGID, you take your blood serum and process it to pull out any antibodies (definition: things made by the goat's immune system that bind to a germ and signal the immune system to attack) that are present in it. Then you take a sheet of agar gel and punch two holes in it across from each other. You take your purified antibodies and put them in one hole. You take an antigen (definition: the germ the antibodies react to in the goat's body) and put that into the opposite hole. Then the antibodies and antigen diffuse towards each other in the gel. When they meet up, they bind together and make a white line in the gel. A very definite white line equals a positive result. No white line equals a negative result. A faint white line equals a suspect or faint positive result. False positives are rare, but false negatives can happen commonly because the test does not detect low levels of antibodies. So the goat can carry the virus and have antibodies to it in their bodies but not show positive because it isn't enough antibodies to make the white line appear. This is a visual test that is read by a human so there is also some interpretation errors that can occur.

The ELISA test is more accurate because it is a completely different sort of test. The way it works is you take a plastic tray that has little wells in it that have CAE virus proteins stuck to the bottom of them. You take the blood serum of the goat and purify out the antibodies that are in it and stick the purified serum into the wells. Any antibodies to CAE will stick to the CAE virus proteins that are in the bottom of the wells. Then you add a marker that binds to the antibodies that are stuck to the virus proteins. You take the plastic tray and stick it in an ELISA spectrometer that scans each well and tells you how much marker is present. The amount of marker present directly corresponds to how many antibodies are present in the blood serum. This number of antibodies present is the antibody titer. This is why you get a titer with and ELISA and not with AGID. The ELISA is fairly accurate but there can be problems if antibodies for other diseases in the goat's blood serum stick to whatever CAE virus proteins are used in the wells. Each lab could potentially use different CAE virus proteins, thus explaining some of the differences in ELISA titers between labs on the same goats.

There's a great site that explains all this: www.goatbiology.com/caetestelisa.html. I hope I explained this well enough that it makes sense.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Thank you Rose!


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

That was an excellent explanation Rose!


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## nightskyfarm (Sep 7, 2009)

Thank you Rose, that was kind of how my vet explained it, but I still couldn't grasp the difference. A doeling that I brought on to the farm tested neg with the AGID test. She is 6 months old. Should I retest her with the ELISA test? Or is she neg?


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

I would re-test. AGID can give false negatives (ie, the test says negative, but it's really not) if the levels aren't high enough.


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Thank you so much, Rose. Your explanation is much clearer for me now.

But I don't understand this part: Each lab could potentially use different CAE virus proteins, thus explaining some of the differences in ELISA titers between labs on the same goats.

I don't understand the "...different CAE virus proteins..."

And why can/does Biotracking give titer levels and others, even using ELISA, cannot?


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

We now have a Ask Chuck at biotracking.com sticky at the top of the forum. Let have it be very straight forward, ask Chuck a question, get an answer from him when he comes on to visit, he can also post anything else of interest that he wants on there. Please do not answer the questions, lets let Chuck do it and no chatter, if you want to discuss something he has posted, copy and paste it into a new thread and chatter all you want on the main forum.

Thank you Chuck for offering to answer out questions. Vicki


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Thanks Chuck!


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Haha...I was looking for the "like" button.


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