Immunochromatographic assay using gold nanoparticles for measuring salivary secretory IgA in dogs as a stress marker

Abstract

The concentration of salivary secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA) is a well-known stress marker for humans. The concentration of salivary sIgA in dogs has also been reported as a useful stress marker. In addition, salivary sIgA in dogs has been used to determine the adaptive ability of dogs for further training. There are conventional procedures based on enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for measuring salivary sIgA in dogs. However, ELISA requires long assay time, complicated operations and is costly. In the present study, we developed an immunochromatographic assay for measuring salivary sIgA in dogs using a dilution buffer containing a non-ionic surfactant. We determined 2500-fold dilution as the optimum condition for dog saliva using a phosphate buffer (50 mM, pH 7.2) containing non-ionic surfactant (3 wt% Tween 20). The results obtained from the saliva samples of three dogs using immunochromatographic assay were compared with those obtained from ELISA. It was found that the immunochromatographic assay is applicable to judge the change in salivary sIgA in each dog. The immunochromatographic assay for salivary sIgA in dogs is a promising tool, which should soon become commercially available for predicting a dog's psychological condition and estimating adaptive ability for training as guide or police dogs.

Psychogenic Stress in Hospitalized Dogs: Cross Species Comparisons, Implications for Health Care, and the Challenges of Evaluation

“…Salivary immunoglobulin(Ig)A (sIgA) is a well-known marker of stress in humans [ 72 ]. sIgA concentrations have been shown to negatively correlate with cortisol concentrations in dogs, and have been used to evaluate both acute and chronic stress in dogs [ 73 , 74 ].…”

Evaluation of salivary vasopressin as an acute stress biomarker in healthy dogs with stress due to noise and environmental challenges

“…The activity of sAA increased in dogs with various diseases compared to healthy dogs [28]. Salivary immunoglobulin A (sIgA) is a proven stress biomarker in human medicine [40]. It is known to be negatively correlated with cortisol concentration after acute stress in adult dogs but not in puppies [41].…”

Production Efficiency, Nutrient Utilization and Intestinal Histology of Broilers Fed on Energy Diluted Diet Supplemented with Lipase and Bile Acids

“…Given that measuring stress hormones are very common in the study of monitoring the physiological condition of wildlife (Schwarzenberger, 2007;Wang et al, 2009), using stress hormones instead of testosterone could broaden the window of the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (Behringer and Deschner, 2017). Published works indicated that higher glucocorticoid concentrations can inhibit IgA production (Griffin and Thomson, 1998;Pihl and Hau, 2003;Paramastri et al, 2007), and several studies found a negative correlation between stress level and IgA level in mammals, such as dogs (Skandakumar et al, 1995;Takahashi et al, 2009), rats (Royo et al, 2004) and humans (Deinzer, 1998;Ng et al, 1999), which all supported the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis. However, data from Sichuan snubnosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana) showed a positive correlation between fecal cortisol concentrations and fecal IgA concentrations in both sexes (Huang et al, 2014), while study on lachrymal IgA in chickens failed to demonstrate a correlation between the level of IgA and stress hormone (Florence et al, 1995).…”