Immunochemistry Of Solid Phase Immunoassay

Immunochemistry of Solid-Phase Immunoassay fills a niché in the field of immunoassay and immunology. Although solid-phase immunoassay constitutes a major technology in biology and medicine, there is no comprehensive source devoted to the immunochemical principles involved. As a result, this book will benefit students, technicians, and researchers who use this technology, as well as immunodiagnostic and biotech companies who develop the technology. The book is not a methods manual; instead, it incorporates the concepts, data, and opinions of more than 25 investigators working in this field. Topics discussed include: the chemistry of solid-phases, the behavior or antibodies and antigens on solid phases, membrane solid-phases, reaction kinetics, antigen quantitation, enzyme systems, photophysics, immunochemical considerations in data analyses, multianalyte assays and occupancy concepts, antibody quantitation, streptavidin, a review of data analysis software, and solid-phase peptide immunoassay.

This is a quick-reference manual on practical aspects of immunoassay. Providing a theoretical and practical basis for modern applications of solid-phase immunoassays, this text brings together experts who have used ELISA and other assays in a variety of fields. Contributors offer step-by-step guidance on how to use the various techniques involved in immunoassay. These techniques are extemely useful to laboratory-based researchers and technicians working on the detection of allergy, the AIDS virus, autoimmunity, etc. Chapters analyze the solid-phase supports used, the amplification systems, and the quantitation and affinity of antibodies and discuss the applications of assays to biology, immunology, and microbiology.

The purpose of this book is to focus attention on some of these ideas and concepts. In doing so, it has captured a glimpse of the past and it attempts a projection of the future, but mostly it reveals an overview of the field as it exists as the present time. It aims to serve to spawn further growth in ideas and encourage applications to increasingly broader segments of both clinical and general analytical chemistry fields.

Chemiluminescence immunoassay is now established as one of the best alternatives to conventional radioimmunoassay for the quantitation of low concentrations of analytes in complex samples. During the last two decades the technology has evolved into analytical procedures whose performance far exceeds that of immunoassays based on the use of radioactive labels. Without the constraints of radioactivity, the scope of this type of analytical procedure has widened beyond the confines of the specialist clinical chemistry laboratory to other disciplines such as microbiology, veterinary medicine, agriculture, food and environmental testing. This is the first work to present the topic as a subject in its own right. In order to provide a complete picture of the subject, overviews are presented of the individual areas of chemiluminescence and immunoassay with particular emphasis on the requirements for interfacing chemiluminescent and immunochemical reactions. The possible ways of configuring chemiluminescence immunoassays are described. State-of-the-art chemiluminescence immunoassay systems are covered in detail together with those systems which are commercially available. The book is aimed at researchers and routine laboratory staff in the life sciences who wish to make use of this high-performance analytical technique and also at those interested in industrial applications of the technology in the food, agricultural and environmental sciences.

Everyone conducting analyses using immunological methods should read METHODS OF IMMUNOLOGICAL ANALYSIS. Now available! Three detailed volumes supplying a complete practice-oriented introduction to immunoanalysis. A set in themselves, they provide an extraordinarily comprehensive and up-to-date depiction of these methods. Both specialists and non-specialists will appreciate the broad scope of this set: It covers a wide area of the life sciences, chemistry and medicine, adjusted to the extensive applicability of immunoanalytical techniques. We at VCH feel that there is a definite need for this indispensable new series. Immunoanalysis is widely practised by analysts whose interests or training are not primarily in immunology. They clearly need the guidance that a good reference work provides. Furthermore, the range of immunochemical methods itself is so broad and its techniques so varied that even specialist immunologists and immunochemists find it difficult to assess different possible analytical approaches. They, too, need the support of an extensive reference work. Save 20% by subscribing to the series by 30 June 1993!