Lactoferrin quantification in cattle faeces by ELISA

Sustainable Agriculture Sciences, Rothamsted Research, North Wyke, United Kingdom
School of Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Institute of Global Food Security, The Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom
College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.27864v1
Subject Areas
Agricultural Science, Ecology, Veterinary Medicine, Zoology
Keywords
one-health, livestock, veterinary science, animals, immunology, ecology, agriculture, veterinary medicine, zoology
Copyright
© 2019 Cooke et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Cooke AS, Watt K, Albery GF, Morgan ER, Dungait JAJ. 2019. Lactoferrin quantification in cattle faeces by ELISA. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27864v1

Abstract

Background: Promoting and maintaining health is critical to ruminant welfare and productivity. Within human medicine, faecal lactoferrin is quantified for routine assessment of various gastrointestinal illnesses avoiding the need for blood sampling. This approach might also be adapted and applied for non-invasive health assessments in animals.

Methods: In this proof-of-concept study a bovine lactoferrin enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), designed for serum and milk, was applied to a faecal supernatant to assess its potential for quantifying lactoferrin in the faeces of cattle. Faecal lactoferrin concentrations were compared to background levels to assess the viability of the technique. A comparison was then made against serum lactoferrin levels to determine if they were or were not reflective of one another.

Results: The optical densities of faecal samples were significantly greater than background readings, supporting the hypothesis that the assay was effective in quantifying faecal lactoferrin (T13, 115 = 11.99, p < 0.0005, n = 115). Lactoferrin concentrations of faecal and serum samples, taken from the same animals on the same day, were significantly different (T21 = 2.49, p = 0.022) and did not correlate (r = 0.069, p = 0.767).

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.

Supplemental Information

Supplement of sheep and deer samples

A supplement containing information for the sheep and deer samples (faecal and blood) that were analysed in addition to the core cattle work.

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.27864v1/supp-1

Dataset

Raw data that was collected and used within the analyses in the main manuscript.

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.27864v1/supp-2