SOURCES OF EXPERIMENTAL VARIATION IN CALIBRATION CURVES FOR ENZYME-LINKED-IMMUNOSORBENT-ASSAY

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays are usually performed by running st andard and unknown concentrations together on the same microtiter plat e, because the standard curve is known to vary considerably from one a ssay to the next. Here we examine experimentally the sources and natur e of this variation, and discuss the possibility of reducing the cost of the assay by using a batch of plates, only one of which is used to generate the calibration curve. We present a method for doing this, an d test it empirically.