Abstract

DEVELOPMENT OF A SANDWICH ELISA FOR THE DETECTION OF RUSSELL’S VIPER VENOM USING CHICKEN EGG YOLK ANTIBODIES (IGY)

Ankit Choraria, Rajeswari S. and Michael Antonysamy*

ABSTRACT

Envenomation from snakebite is considered as a serious health hazard in tropical and sub tropical countries. Detection of venom / venomous bite is still a major concern for the treatment of the patients affected by snake bite. Hence in this study we produced antivenoms from chicken and rabbits and used for the development of sandwich ELISA for the detection of russell’s viper venom. Hyper immune eggs were purified by the method Polson et al., 1980. Titration of the egg yolk sourced antibodies was found to be 1:10000 whereas antisera from rabbits had high titres (1:14000) after the 56th day of immunization. These antibodies were further used for the detection of venom of russell’s viper and plate coated with IgY antibodies were able to detect the snake venom at a range of 10-300ng of samples. IgY antibodies can be used as an alternative source for equine derived antibodies as chicken derived antivenom antibodies can be produced easily in large amounts and are reported widely for its use as antivenom.

Keywords: Envenomation from snakebite is considered as antivenom.