Immunochemical reagents

The invention of B cell hybridoma technology (K3) has allowed the generation of various kinds of useful antibodies, even very minor or rare antibody species elicited in serum by the conventional procedure, as a pure immunochemical reagent in almost unlimited amounts. Among such new-generation monoclonal antibodies, anti-idiotype antibodies and anti-immune complex (anti-metatype) antibodies have been successfully introduced as key reagents enabling noncompetitive hapten immunoassays (Fig. 11). 

Immunochemical methods provide a powerful tool in the field of drug residue analysis. The exquisite specificity that can be obtained with immunochemical reagents provides new analytical opportunities that were previously not possible with classic analytical methods and can greatly reduce the amount of sample cleanup required prior to analysis. 

Antibodies from Phage Display Libraries as Immunochemical Reagents... 

Antibody fragment preparations or PEG-precipitated phage can be used as immunochemical reagents. 

Nissim, A., Hoogenboom, H. R., Tomlinson, I. M, Flynn, G., Midgley, C., Lane, D., and Winter, G. (1994) Antibody fragments from a single pot phage display library as immunochemical reagents. EMBO J 13, 692-698. 

Finally, equipment for assaying and analyzing the preparations is needed. Most such equipment is fairly standard in biochemical laboratories and includes spectrophotometers, scintillation counters, analytical gel and capillary electrophoresis apparatuses, immunoblot-ting materials, and immunochemical reagents. 

Immunochemical reagents design of immunogen and enzyme labelled compound... 

Animal Maintenance Capabilities. Larger species require more extensive animal holding facilities. While goats or horses may be used to generate large volumes of immunochemical reagent, most laboratories are not equipped with adequate facilities to accommodate such species. 

Besides commercial kits, many immunochemical reagents are available (191,192) anti-drug antibodies, anti-enzyme antibodies, radioisotopic labels, nonisotopic labels, secondary antibodies, and biotinylated conjugates. Because of the flexibility in IA designs, investigators can consider several options from the availability of the commercial materials in addition to in-house resources in preparing the IA reagent components. 

Fiberoptic sensors can be used to measure PAHs in situ A xenon lamp is a common excitation source when connected to optical fiber to excite a sample remotely and induce fluorescence. The fluorescence light emitted is collected by another optical fiber and transmitted to a photomultiplier detector. Sensors are chemically modified to enhance selectivity and sensitivity. (3-cyclodextrins and immunochemical reagents on optical fiber probes can selectively determine individual PAHs but with some crossreactivity. Fluorescence probes such as perylene can be imbedded in polymers affixed to the end of the probe. 

Antibodies are immunoreagents. Considering the ligand-receptor basis for immunochemistry, avidin and biotin are often considered immunochemical reagents. The literature is replete with assays that employ immunological methods to increase sensitivity or specificity of nucleic acid analysis. 

Ultimately, immunochemical reagents of relatively low cost hold the key to rapid tests for DNA analysis without amplification. 

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