Immunological identification of Vibrio parahaemolyticus: Staphylococcal coagglutination test and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay

The species-specific antigenicity of the lateral flagella of Vibrio parahaemolyticus was applied to techniques for immunological identification of the vibrio. One was a coagglutination test using staphylococcal cells sensitized with anti-lateral-flagella antibody bound to protein A located in the staphylococcal cell wall. The other technique was an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using a four-layer sandwich procedure. By means of the staphylococcal coagglutination technique, about 10⁶ vibrio cells or 60 ng of flagellar protein could be detected and the whole procedure was performed within 1 h. The sandwich ELISA procedure was more sensitive, but the time required for the whole procedure was about 8 h. Both techniques were specific for V. parahaemolyticus, because no cross-reactivity was observed with other related vibrios, and the tests were not inhibited by heterologous bacterial cells. These results suggest that both techniques are useful for the rapid identification of V. parahaemolyticus in complex samples.