Validation and application of an enzyme-linked immunoassay for human erythropoietin to canine serum

An enzyme-linked immunoassay (EIA) kit for measuring human serum erythropoietin was evaluated to determine its potential as an assay for canine erythropoietin. Dilutional parallelism was observed with the diluted human standard and pooled canine serum over a range of concentrations of erythropoietin, demonstrating cross-reactivity between human and canine erythropoietin. In canine samples the mean intra- and interassay coefficients of variation were 9.72 and 7.19 per cent, respectively. The theoretical minimum detectable concentration was 0.09 mIU ml(-1). In 25 normal adult dogs the concentration of serum erythropoietin ranged from less than the minimum detectable concentration to 31.8 mIU ml(-1), with a mean (SD) of 6.77 (6.82) mIU ml(-1). The changes in serum erythropoietin could be monitored during the recovery of dogs from phlebotomy induced anaemia. These results suggest that the EIA kit can be used for the quantitative assessment of canine erythropoietin.