N. Simonney et al., RECYCLING OF ELISA PLATES FOR THE SEROLOGICAL DIAGNOSIS OF TUBERCULOSIS USING A MYCOBACTERIUM TUBERCULOSIS-SPECIFIC GLYCOLIPID ANTIGEN, Journal of immunological methods, 199(1), 1996, pp. 101-105
A Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific glycolipid antigen (diacyl-treha
lose - DAT) and a battery of defined sera from tuberculous patients we
re used to evaluate the reliability of recycling ELISA microplates for
serodiagnosis of tuberculosis. The reuse of plates was evaluated by t
he same ELISA technique before and after recycling with an acid buffer
to dissociate and release antibodies from antigen-antibody complexes
fixed on used plates. The correlation coefficients for comparisons bet
ween several new plates used on different days were always higher than
r = 0.90, and the Variation between tests was always lower than 12%.
For comparisons performed systematically between new plates and recycl
ed plates, the values were variable. Up to the fifth recycling, the co
rrelation coefficient was higher than r = 0.60. From the sixth recycli
ng, correlation coefficient values fell to r = 0.381. The results obta
ined with recycled plates washed manually were much poorer than those
obtained after automatic washing. The results described in this report
demonstrate that an ELISA test can be performed on recycled plates un
der the conditions described.