A general micro-ELISA design utilizing monoclonal antibodies: Application to assays for AFP and CEA

Conclusions

Although more laborious at first sight than commercial ELISA procedures, our assay system can compete with them even in terms of turn-around time: with simple microtitre equipment assay time is practically uninfluenced by the sample number. Costs per single assay are reduced to less than 0.15 DM. More important, an assay design is presented consisting of a “universal” solid phase/detection-system combination that merely requires (commercial) monoclonal mouse and unconjugated polyclonal antibodies to be completed to a specific test system. Competitive assays requiring a monoclonal antibody and conjugated marker analyte may be attractive as well.