Effects of sulfate concentration, electroendosmotic flow, and electrical resistance of agars and agaroses on counterimmunoelectrophoresis with adenovirus antigens and antisera.

The sulfate concentration, electroendosmosis (EE), and electrical resistance of 23 commonly used agars and agaroses were measured by standard techniques and related to counterimmunoeletrophoresis (CE) with adenovirus antigens and antisera. Statistical analyses of the test procedures themselves showed that the tests had sufficient reproducibility to warrant further analyses on the interaction or combined effects of these parameters on adenovirus CE tests. Both sulfate concentration and EE were related to CE by cubic polynomial equations; sulfate was directly related to EE by a linear equation. Resistance was somewhat linearly related to CE, but the differences among agars were too small to show a clear correlation. The data show that the fixed charges of the sulfate anion are major, although probably not the only, contributors to EE. The combines EE calculations from spectrophotometrically-scanned and hand-measured slides were used to predict the usefulness of new lots of agaroses for diagnostic adenovirus CE tests, according to the derived equation, CE score = 4.9 + 112.1 EE --397.1 EE2 + 329.1 EE3. The best stabilizing media for adenovirus CE tests had sulfate concentrations of 0.37% +/- 0.16% and EE cathodic mobility ratios of 0.17 +/- 0.03.