Abstract: Objective To investigate the infection states of Clostridium piliforme in laboratory rats and evaluate the usefulness of indirect fluorescent antibody assay(IFA), nested-polymerase chain reac-tion (nested-PCR), ELISA. Methods Specimens were collected from the rat colonies and detected for C.Piliforme by using IFA, ELISA and nested-PCR methods at the same time. The results of three detection methods were compared and analysis. Results A total 125 Rats，36 out of 125 serum samples (28.8%) are showed to be positive by IFA; 24 out of 125 serum samples(19.2%) are showed to be positive by ELISA;6 out of 125 liver and fecal samples (4.8%) was positive by PCR. The positive rate of detected by IFA and ELISA were higher than PCR. Conclusions IFA method to combination with ELISA method can improve the sensitivity and reliability of the detection results. For the positive samples could be differentiated by PCR method. By contrast, IFA is a quick ,reliable and cheap method. IFA is available for the epidemiological investigation of C.Piliforme.

Key words: Clostridum Piliforme, epidemiology, IFA, ELISA, PCR