ELISA sensitivity

[David L. Haviland, Ph.D.]

At 09:57 8/5/97 GMT, Jared Head wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Forgive my asking a question which is probably answered in loads of papers
>- I don't know where to look - but what's the smallest amount of protein
>that a simple ELISA (primary antibody and secondary antibody) can detect?
>Obviously I don't expect an exact answer (though that would be nice!) but
>if someone could give me a clue as to the order that would be very
>helpful.

Jared:

I do hope that discussion of this is public as this has been a topic of
interest for me.  I have seen "kits" from Amersham, Endogen and the like
claiming sensitivity down to the pg/ml.  I'm curious as to how this
sensitivity is achieved.  Careful selection of capture and dectection
antibodies?  Operationally,  with the various ELISA's and RIA's that I have
had to develop for various reasons, I have never been able to get the
sensitivity better than the single digit ng/ml.  

David