1) Cuterebra is a parasite of rodents and lagomorphs that can infect cats, causing disease by migrating through tissues including eyes, respiratory tract, and brain. 2) An ELISA was used to test 247 cat sera samples from rural New England for antibodies to Cuterebra, using crude larval antigens. 3) 16 samples had over a 75% probability of infection, and 32 samples had over a 50% probability, indicating exposure to Cuterebra is present in the cat population of rural New England.

1. Survey using ELISA of feline sera from rural New England for Cuterebra-specific
IgG.
Nilda N. Valenzuela*1, Ramaswamy Chandrashekar2, Jesse Buch2, Janice L. Liotta1,
Dwight D. Bowman1. 1Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 2IDEXX Laboratories Inc.,
Portland, ME.
Cuterebra is a genus of obligate dipteran parasites of rodents and lagomorphs that can
cause infection and clinical disease in cats and dogs. Eggs are laid along host trails
and burrow entrances, and sensing a passing host, the larvae hatch from the egg, and
make their way into the host via an orifice. The first instar migrates about in the viscera,
and ultimately makes its way to a subdermal location where it creates a benign warble.
In the warble, the larva matures prior to dropping to the ground to pupate. In the rodents
and lagomorph hosts, there do not appear to be untoward consequences caused by the
larvae during migration. However, in cats and dogs, larvae may invade the eyes,
respiratory tract, and cerebral tissues, and thereby causing signs of depression, upper
respiratory and neurologic disease, behavioral changes, and the infection sometimes
proves fatal. Using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with crude third-
instar antigens shown to detect Cuterebra–specific IgG in feline sera, the goal of this
work was to examine the prevalence this antibody in cats from rural New England. The
positive or negative status of a cat is determined for each sample based on comparison
to positive and negative control sera. The negative sera is a commercially supplied pool
of normal cat sera, and the positive sera is from a cat with a high ELISA titer from which
a bot was removed. In this study, the ELISA was used to screen sera from rural New
England cats for Cuterebra-specific IgG. Out of 247 samples screened at a 1:20
dilution, 16 samples were found to have >75% probability of infection, and 32 samples
had a >50% probability of infection.