COMPARISON OF ELISA AND HPLC AS A MEANS OF CATECHOLAMINE QUANTIFICATION

Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assays were developed to the catecholamine s adrenaline and noradrenaline which were capable of catecholamine det ection to concentrations of 100pg/ml and 1ng/ml respectively. Cross-re activity assays revealed that neither assay was subject to interferenc e by the catecholamine metabolites and derivatives at concentrations b elow 100ng/ml and 1mug/ml. Both ELISAs were validated against the rout inely employed method of catecholamine estimation, high performance li quid chromatography (HPLC). When this was used in combination with UV spectrophotometry it is shown that both ELISAs offer a more sensitive means of catecholamine detection with less intra and inter-assay varia tion. The ELISAs are recommended as relatively simple and efficient me thods of rapidly and routinely monitoring a large number of samples fo r catecholamine quantification which can further be developed for clin ical immunoassays for neural-crest tumour screening.