Effective method for synthetic peptide immobilization that increases the sensitivity and specificity of ELISA procedures.

A procedure is described for the immobilization of synthetic peptide antigens on a plastic solid phase for performing ELISA. The use of a streptavidin-biotinylated peptide system for coating microplates with peptide antigen markedly increased both the sensitivity and the specificity compared to a standard ELISA based on synthetic peptides. The procedure was used for the detection of HIV-1-specific antibodies.