Abstract
For developing water treatment system to prevent waterborne Cryptosporidiosis, it is necessary to estimate the inactivation of Cryptosporidium. Recently, cell culture model has developed into a tool that can be used for assessing the viability and/or infectivity of Cryptosporidium oocysts. In this study, we investigated to develop quantative and sensitive detection method for determining the infectivity of Cryptosporidium oocysts by combining cell culture with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Human ileocecal epitherial cells (HCT-8), which were seeded in gelatin-coated 96-well plates at the density of 1 × 104 cells · well-1 and incubated at 37°C for 48h, were infected with the oocysts. After inoculation, HCT-8 cells were re-incubated with fresh culture media at 37°C for 48h, then were processed for ELISA. The absorbance values in ELISA were increased in an inoculating dose-dependent manner. In the experimental condition, the number of the oocysts from 1 × 102 to 3 × 104 per well was quantitatively detected.
