Detection of antibodies to Trypanosoma cruzi in the South American opossum (Didelphis marsupialis).

Stocks of Trypanosoma cruzi belonging to two different zymodemes, one usually associated with silvatic reservoir hosts and the other not normally found in wild reservoir hosts, were used as sources of diagnostic antigens in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays for the detection of antibodies to T. cruzi in Didelphis marsupialis. Both antigen preparations reacted with antibodies in sera from animals found to be infected by conventional parasitological techniques and also in sera from a proportion of the remaining animals in which it was not possible to detect trypanosomes.