Zlenko O. Laboratory diagnosis of tularemia (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and polymerase chain reaction), epizootological monitoring, and genotyping of the pathogen

The dissertation thesis on competition of the candidate scientific degree in biological sciences on a specialty 03.00.20 - biotechnology. National Research Center "Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine". Kharkiv, 2020. The thesis is devoted to the development of tularemia laboratory diagnostics methods based on the plasmid recombinant constructions. For the first time in Ukraine, the efficiency of recombinant antigens usage based on GroEl, SucB, and FTT0975 proteins for identification of anti-tularemia antibodies in swine and human sera by ELISA was proved, and the effectiveness of recombinant positive control based on tul4 gene was also proved in F.tularensis detection by PCR. For the first time in Ukraine, seromonitoring for tularemia infection among wild boars (Suc scrofa) was conducted, during which the presence of antibodies to F.tularensis was found in 12 regions of Ukraine. Also, new epizootological data on tularemia were obtained from Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Mykolaiv regions using molecular genetic methods. MLVA genotyping of 20 F. tularensis Ukrainian isolates was performed at 12 loci. As a result, the genotypes and relativeness with other genetically similar populations were determined. The F.tularensis genotype, which was assigned to the "European" cluster, prevailed for 10 years in most regions of Ukraine.