Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay reactions

ELISA - Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay - Reaction of antibody - enzyme conjugate with ligand. Free ligand or antibody affects enzyme activity (NAD NADH). 

Laboratory confirmation is vital to effective treatment of HSV, especially in individuals in whom a clinical diagnosis cannot be obtained. There are several methods by which a definitive diagnosis may be acquired, and these include virologic typing, serologic diagnosis, rapid point-of-care antigen detection, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), immunoblot, and DNA polymerase chain reaction.27... 

Additionally it has been our experience that mass spectrometry as a routine detection/identification technique for bacteria is not well received by microbiologists and clinicians who prefer less expensive, less complicated approaches to bacterial typing and identification, such as methods based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). For that reason we have adapted our MS approach to serve as a means of biomarker discovery that feeds candidate proteins or leads into development as PCR targets or other immunoassay techniques. 

An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) has two major components. The first is the immunological reaction that occurs between an antigen and antibody. This reaction is crucial and needs careful optimization. The second compo-... 

A classical approach is the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), where the antigen (e.g., the protein to be quantified) is immobilized on the surface of a well. A first antigen-specific antibody is applied to occupy all antigens, before a second antibody binds all primary antibodies on the well. The second antibody carries an enzyme, which now catalyzes a color reaction. If the substrate of the enzyme is given in high excess, the enzyme is saturated and the production of product is linear with time and concentration of second antibody and antigen (Fig. 8). 

Fig. 8. Schematic presentation of a enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). An antigen ( ) is immobilized on the surface of a microtiter plate and incubated with its antibody (abl). A second antibody (ab2) with a covalently linked enzyme ( , e.g., horseradish peroxidase) binds to the primary one and catalyzes a color reaction with its enzyme. All incubations are separated by washing steps...

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is based on the specific reaction between an antibody and an antigen. One of the reagents in the reaction is labeled with an enzyme that generates a colorimetric product that can be measured with a spectrophotometric device. The color intensity correlates with the concentration of specific antibody and the respective antigen. The reaction can be formatted in various ways in a multiwell plate (microtiter plate) with the common formats being the sandwich assay, the competitive assay, and the direct assay. (See Figure 11.1.)... 

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay is a heterogenous immunoassay. Reactions involve a solid phase to which components are sequentially presented and successively bound. This method is very effective in the determination of the total alkaloid content. The positive characteristics of this method are the use of non-toxic reagents and basic equipment with low costs, a small sample volume and the ability to measure alkaloids in crude sample extracts. According to the literature, compared with results obtained from GLC, the precision of ELISA for quinolizidine alkaloids is not as high as that of the gas chromatography procedure, but is adequate for plant breeding purposes. The use of enzymes in developing the methods of quinolizidine alkaloids analysis looks likely to increase in the future. 

Further improvement of microchemical methods for proteinaceous media was based on immunological techniques. The high specificity of the antigen-antibody reaction enables the discrimination of the same protein coming from different species, or the detection of multiple antigens in the same sample. Application to the analysis of artwork has been reported in two types of immunological techniques immunofluorescence microscopy (IFM), and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) [31]. 

The traditional microbiological methods are very time consuming and sometimes limited concerning their interpretation. For that reason fast analysis methods as well as automated methods have been developed the latter are often used in specialised microbiological laboratories. During the last few years more and more modern biotechnological methods have been implemented into quality control, for example the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay or more recently the polymerase chain reaction, which allows the detection of very specific microorganisms. 

Antibodies can be combined with enzymes and color reagents or radioactive antigens to produce quantitative testing for drugs. The ELISA or Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbant Assay uses antibodies generated against the Ag to be tested for covalently linked to an enzyme which can catalyze a color change reaction such as the NADH to NAD conversion (Xmax at 340 nm). When the Ag-Ab complex is formed the enzyme is activated and the color can be detected. 

An ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) allows for rapid screening and quantification of the presence of an antigen in a sample (Fig. 5-28b). Proteins in a sample are adsorbed to an inert surface, usually a 96-well polystyrene plate. The surface is washed with a solution of an inexpensive nonspecific protein (often casein from nonfat dry milk powder) to block proteins introduced in subsequent steps from also adsorbing to these surfaces. The surface is then treated with a solution containing the primary antibody—an antibody against the protein of interest. Unbound antibody is washed away and the surface is treated with a solution containing antibodies against the primary antibody. These secondary antibodies have been linked to an enzyme that catalyzes a reaction that forms a colored product. After unbound secondary antibody is washed away, the substrate of the antibody-linked enzyme is added. Product formation (monitored as color intensity) is proportional to the concentration of the protein of interest in the sample. 

The enzyme attached to antibody 2 is critical for quantitative analysis. Figure 19-14 shows two ways in which the enzyme can be used. The enzyme can transform a colorless reactant into a colored product. Because one enzyme molecule catalyzes the same reaction many times, many molecules of colored product are created for each analyte molecule. The enzyme thereby amplifies the signal in the chemical analysis. The higher the concentration of analyte in the original unknown, the more enzyme is bound and the greater the extent of the enzyme-catalyzed reaction. Alternatively, the enzyme can convert a nonfluorescent reactant into a fluorescent product. Colorimetric and fluorometric enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays are sensitive to less than a nanogram of analyte. Pregnancy tests are based on the immunoassay of a placental protein in urine. 

Eig. 5. Several endpoint detection methods were compared for the detection of immuno-polymerase chain reaction (IPCR) amplificate from a direct IPCR (Fig. 3A) of mouse-IgG. Although all IPCR/DNA-detection combinations were able to improve the detection limit of a comparable enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) of approximately 10 amol IgG in a 30-fL sample volume, several differences were observed in actual detection limit, and the linearity of the concentration/signal ratio dependent on the DNA quantification was applied. Best results were obtained for PCR-ELISA (see also Fig. 6) in combination with fluorescence- or chemiluminescence-generating substrates (b, c). With photometric substrates (d) or gel electrophoresis and subsequent spot densitometry (a), a 10-fold decrease in sensitivity was observed. In addition to the more sigmoid curve in gel electrophoresis, an enhanced overall error of 20% compared to 13% in PCR-ELISA was observed for two independent assays. The simple addition of a double-strand sensitive intercalation marker to the PCR-amplificate and measurement in a fluorescence spectrometer further decreased sensitivity (e) and appears therefore to be unsuited for IPCR amplificate quantification. (Figure modified according to references 37 and 65.)... 

Niemeyer CM, Adler M, Blohm D. Fluorometric polymerase chain reaction (PCR) enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for quantification of immuno-PCR products in microplates. Anal Biochem 1997 246(1) 140-145. 

Nunes, G.S., M.P. Marco, M. Farre, et al. 1999. Direct application of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method for carbaryl determination in fruits and vegetables. Comparison with a liquid chromatography-postcolumn reaction fluorescence detection method. Anal. Chim. Acta 387 245-253. 

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