(b) Quantity of sera collected per month The agreement of both ELISAs regarding positive samples was 4

(b) Quantity of sera collected per month The agreement of both ELISAs regarding positive samples was 4.4%. additional 0.8% (n= 8) were giving inconclusive results. In contrast, a nucleocapsidbased ELISA revealed 0.5% (n= 5) positive and 0.2% (n= 2) inconclusive results. While the iIFT and sVNT confirmed 100% of positive and 50%57.1% of Rabbit polyclonal to ARMC8 the doubtful results as decided in the RBD ELISA, the nucleocapsidbased assay showed a high discrepancy and only one of the five positive results could be confirmed. The results indicate significant deficits of the nucleocapsidbased ELISA with respect to sensitivity and specificity. Due to a significantly higher rate (5.8%) of positive results in the group of highly FCoV antibodypositive samples, crossreactivity of the FCoVELISA with SARSCoV2 antibodies cannot be excluded. Furthermore, we investigated the impact of direct contact of domestic cats (n= 23) to SARSCoV2 positive owners. Considering one inconclusive result, which got confirmed by iIFT, this exposure did not lead to a significantly higher prevalence (4.4%;p= .358) among tested subjects. Overall, we conclude that cats are a negligible entity with respect to virus transmission in Europe. Keywords:cats, COVID19, SARSCoV2, seroprevalence == Impacts. == A screening for antisevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV2) antibodies in domestic cats during the early phase of the coronavirus disease19 pandemic revealed an overall seropositivity of 1 1.9%, while 0.8% yielded inconclusive results using an Cipargamin RBDbased ELISA. Reported direct exposure of cats to SARSCoV2positive owners led to higher seroprevalence (4.4%), which was not statistically significant. The comparison of two antiSARSCoV2 antibody ELISAs (RBD and nucleocapsidbased) tested for possible crossreactivity to feline coronavirus showed deficits in sensitivity and specificity of the nucleocapsidbased assay. == 1. INTRODUCTION == Roughly, 36% of households in Germany are keeping dogs or cats as companion animals (Headey & Grabka,2007). Within the last decades, the relationship between humans and pets is usually characterized by more intensive contact (Franklin & White,2001; Krahn et al.,2015). Therefore, it is affordable to presume that the latter may be conducive to zoonotic transmission of infectious brokers. Thus, One Health concepts targeting domestic pets gain importance as Cipargamin does the identification of pathogens with zoonotic potential (Cantas & Suer,2014; Kahn et al.,2007). In December 2019, a novel respiratory disease caused by a pathogen known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV2) has occurred in humans in Wuhan, China (Zhu, Zhang, et al.,2020). Genomic similarities suggest coronaviruses of bats or pangolins as proximal if not direct sources of SARSCoV2 transmission to humans (Xiao et al.,2020; Zhang, Wu, et al.,2020). While knowledge about intermediate hosts and reservoir animals was lacking at the beginning of the pandemic, susceptibility of companion animals soon became a focus of interest. Experimental infections confirmed moderate to high susceptibility of cats to SARSCoV2 contamination, whereas dogs were reported to be less susceptible (BoscoLauth et al.,2020; Shi et al.,2020). In cats, experimental SARSCoV2 infections usually remain asymptomatic. In naturally infected felids, mildtomoderate respiratory symptoms, nausea and diarrhoea were explained (Hossain et al.,2021; Michelitsch, Wernike, et al.,2021). In addition, prolonged virus shedding was reported in felids when compared with dogs (BoscoLauth et al.,2020; Schulz et al.,2021). Contact experiments confirmed the possibility of cattocat transmission and thus the potential spread of SARSCoV2 within feline populations (BoscoLauth et al.,2020; Gaudreault et al.,2020; Halfmann et al.,2020; Shi et al.,2020). Due to the close contact of cats to their owners, numerous cases of humantoanimal transmissions have been reported (Garigliany et al.,2020; Sailleau et al.,2020; Segals et al.,2020). Zooanthroponotic contamination has Cipargamin only been detected in mink farms so far (Munnink et al.,2021), but such examples suggest.