Methods of reducing the effect of spontaneous dissociation of antigen-antibody interactions in radioimmunoassays with special reference to internal sample attenuator counting (ISAC)

A time dependent decrease of sample counts was observed in an adsorption radioimmunoassay with internal sample attenuator counting. The drift caused a bias in the estimate of the amount of antigen in the samples. The size of this deviation was dependent upon the length of time after the calibration curve was made that the samples were measured. This was essentially due to dissociation of the antigen-antibody complexes as the adsorber can act as a second receptor to the antigen. Addition of slowly sedimenting starch microspheres or starch particles inhibited the drift by forming a diffusion barrier on the attenuating pellet. (author)