Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is also known as an enzyme immunoassay (EIA). ELISA is defined as a biochemical technique used in many applications including, microbiology, blood screening, veterinary, and immunology for the detection of antigens and antibodies present in a sample.
ELISA technology is considered an important diagnostic tool in plant and medicine pathology. It is also used for quality control checks in food industries. ELISAs depend on characteristic antibodies to fix the target antigen. A detection system is then used to mark the existence and the number of antigen-binding. There are many companies available that provide the best bdnf elisa kit also.
ELISA has a number of benefits compared to the other immunoassay techniques. It is often preferred because it has high sensitivity and specificity. ELISA also offers more accuracy compared to other techniques such as radioimmunoassay (RIA) tests.
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ELISA assays are usually in 96 well microplate format. Most ELISA microplates have broken apart wells, so smaller runs can be performed if required. The key advantage is that 96 determinations can be performed in a single run, providing results in usually less than 3 hours. This is both quick and cost-effective.
ELISA does not require radioisotopes or costly radiation counters. They do however require accurate micropipettes, an incubator, a washing system, and a microplate spectrophotometer reader.
Nowadays many labs use fully automated ELISA processing systems, on which a wide variety of assays can be tested. These robotic machines are liquid handling systems capable of performing the entire assay from beginning to end. They can often process up to 15 assays on each day shift.
The major advantage of ELISA tests is their accuracy and ability to provide quick results. Serum or plasma samples are required to perform an ELISA test so centrifugation of the patient’s sample is often required.
Because ELISA tests are able to test antigens and antibodies, they are considered flexible tools by medical professionals, and laboratories from all over the world.