AN ELISA FOR DETECTION OF APOPTOSIS

We describe a simple and convenient enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of apoptosis in tissue culture. An early eve nt in apoptosis is DNA fragmentation followed by release of nucleosome s into the cytoplasm. Our sandwich assay uses a pair of monoclonal ant ibodies specific for two nucleosomal epitopes to capture and detect cy toplasmic nucleosomes onto the ELISA plate. Our assay is about 500 tim es more sensitive than the detection of apoptotic DNA ladder by agaros e electrophoresis and is especially suited for the testing of large nu mbers of samples.