Reagent protein complex, equilibrium

The equilibrium constant for the dissociation of the protein reagent complex is given by Equation 3. 

The principle behind the test method(s) is that antibodies are made of proteins that recognize and bind with foreign substances (antigens) that invade host animals. Synthetic antibodies have been developed to complex with petroleum constituents. The antibodies are immobilized on the walls of a special ceU or filter membrane. Water samples are added directly to the cell, while soils must be extracted before analysis. A known amount of labeled analyte (typically, an enzyme with an affinity for the antibody) is added after the sample. The sample analytes compete with the enzyme-labeled analytes for sites on the antibodies. After equilibrium is established, the cell is washed to remove any um-eacted sample or labeled enzyme. Color development reagents that react with the labeled enzyme are added. A solution that stops color development is added at a specified time, and the optical density (color intensity) is measured. Because the coloring agent reacts with the labeled enzyme, samples with high optical density contain low concentrations of analytes. Concentration is inversely proportional to optical density. 

Although affinity capillary electrophoresis (ACE) in its classical mode (one of the reagent is dissolved in a BGE, another is injected) is the most widely used technique in the literature, other capillary electrophoretic methods exist which are even more favorable concerning the information about binding parameters obtainable the Hummel-Dreyer (HD) method, frontal analysis (FA), the vacancy peak (VP) method, and vacancy affinity capillary electrophoresis (VACE) (see, e.g., Refs. 49-57). All the methods need as a precondition that the equilibrium between the reactants (say, protein P, drug D, and complex formed PD) is established rapidly compared to the dislocation of the electropho-retically migrating zones. The experimental setup of the HD and the ACE methods is identical, and so is the setup for the VP and the VACE methods. FA differs from all the other techniques. 

Research is going on to improve the DELFIA system , because of drawbacks such as the time-consuming conversion of the non-fluorescent RE label into a luminescent complex, or the system vulnerability to contamination by RE due to the excess of the reagents ntfa and topo. An alternative is the use of a -diketone that can be covalently bonded to proteins such as 5-(4,4,4-trifluoro-l,3-dioxobutyl)-2-thiophenesulfonyl chloride (ctta) . Since the stability of the RE + complexes formed by this ligand is quite low, a large excess of RE + has to be used to shift the equilibrium to the rare-earth complex. More stable europium complexes can be obtained by the use of tetradentate fi-diketonates, such as 7a-7d, anchored on a functionalized o-terphenyl skeleton, or 8a-8c, anchored on a biperfluorobutadiene skeleton . ... 

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