The results confirmed that both TER ATPase and TPx-1 were able to detect AE mice as early as 10 days post infection, with specificity of 100% (95% confidence interval (CI): 94.4–100.0%) and sensitivity of > 96% (95% CI: 89.2–100.0%), which were significantly higher than those of the crude antigens (Fig 3 and Tables 3 and S3). This evidence concerns the gene VCP and infection.