Abstract
Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent assays or ELISAs are a versatile method for detecting various immunological ligands of interest. As the name suggests, ELISAs rely on the interaction between a ligand and an antibody to produce results. In the study of infectious disease, ELISAs are commonly used to determine if a pathogen-specific immune response has occurred in a host organism. These assays can be performed in serosurveys as part of epidemiological investigations during, or following, an infectious disease outbreak. In the research environment, ELISAs are used to quantify the humoral immune response following infection or vaccination of a host organism. Data from these assays can be used to determine the type of immune response elicited (e.g. IgG1 vs IgG2) and the robustness of the response. Here, we describe ELISAs that were developed for the study of either hamsters or non-human primates vaccinated against Nipah virus infection, or infected with Nipah virus. The ELISAs described include assays for both IgG and IgM in the hamster and non-human primate models for Nipah virus-induced disease. An assay was also developed for the detection of IgA in bronchoalveolar lavage from non-human primates.