FOR THE IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL DETECTION

The detection and identification of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) has never been straightforward. Serologically indistinguishable pathotypes produce a wide spectrum of disease that ranges from a severe respiratory, neurologic, or enteric disease with high mortality to an asymptomatic infection. Extensive use of ND vaccine strains further complicates the serological differentiation of field isolates. Recently, monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) have been produced in some laboratories which are capable of detecting antigenically different pathotypes (Russell 1983). Our major objective of this study was to apply immunohistological techniques for rapid detection of NDV antigen using monoclonal or polyclonal antibody in infected chickens. Two methods of immunocytochemistry, immunofluorescence (IF) and alkaline phosphatase-monoclona