Acetal-functionalized polymer particles useful for immunoassays. III: preparation of latex-protein complexes and their applications.

Monodisperse polymer colloids with dimethyl and diethyl acetal functionalities synthesized by a two-step emulsion polymerization process were chosen as the polymeric support to carry out covalent coupling with the antibody IgG anti C-reactive protein, and to test the utility of the latex-protein complexes formed in immunoassays with the specific CRP antigen. More than the 80% of the initially linked protein was covalently coupled in all of the latexes. The agglutination reaction was followed by turbidimetry. With the aim of analyzing the effect of some of the variables of the immunological reaction, the reaction time, the particle concentration and the coverage degree of protein in the complexes were varied.