Studies on the reliability of diagnosis of atypical mycobacterial infection by using ELISA technique

The infection with atypical mycobacteia is considered one of the main causes of non specific reactions when tuberculin test is applied for diagnosis of bovinetuberculosis in animals.So this study was planned tothrow spot lights on the capability of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique as a serologicaldiagnostic test to differntiate between typical and atypical mycobacterial infections in comparison with thatof the conventional tuberculin test.In this study six groups of tuberculin negative gUlnea pigs were artificially infected with one species ofthese mycobacteria, the other two were left as non-inoculated negative contol.Animals in the first group were inocualted with M.kansasii, those of the 2nd group were inocualted with M.scr0fu1aceurm , the 3rd gr0up was in j ected wit h M .intracellulare, those of the 4th group was inocualted with~ fortuitum, the 5th group was injected with ~ bovis andanimals in the last group was inoculated with ~ aVlum.Serum samples were taken every two weeks after artificial infection till the end of the study. Tuberculintest was done two weeks after infection and then every 4