ABSTRACT
Adding to the use of immune cells as indicators of mastitis, other molecules released in milk as a result of an inflammatory process can represent useful, reliable and practical markers. Several enzymes, sugars and salts are already known to increase in milk during mastitis (Pyorala, 2003) but the advances in biomarker discovery methods based on proteomic techniques (Abd El-Salam, 2014; Ceciliani et al., 2014; Reinhardt et al., 2013; Smolenski et al., 2014) have more recently enabled the identification of other protein and peptide candidates that can form the basis for novel laboratory and field assays. In addition, advancements in immunological assays, for both the laboratory and the field, have increased sensitivity and specificity of biomarker detection and can represent inexpensive and practical alternatives (Gurjar et al., 2012; Viguier et al., 2009).
