THE USE OF CHEMILUMINESCENCE AND THE ELISA SPOT ASSAY TO IDENTIFY ANDENUMERATE RARE IMMUNOGLOBULIN SWITCH VARIANTS

The use of chemiluminescence and the ELISA spot assay for identifying rare immunoglobulin switch variants is described. The technique utiliz es nitrocellulose membranes and allows rapid screening of a large numb er of cells. The number of spots can be recorded either manually or au tomatically by using a commercially available colony counting program. This modification of the ELISA spot assay makes it less labor intensi ve and time consuming and can be adapted for the search for rare cells secreting small amounts of Ig or other macromolecules.