Evaluation of performance parameters of a membrane-based dot immunoassay for meningococcal polysaccharide.

Increasingly, membrane-based enzyme immunoassays are being developed as the preferred solid-phase enzyme immunoassay format. We describe the rate kinetics of a polyvinylidene difluoride membrane-based dot immunoassay for meningococcal group A polysaccharide. Antigen detection sensitivity decreased logarithmically with linear decreases in incubation time. The sensitivity of a 30-min assay (5-min incubation steps) was increased to nearly the level of the standard assay (1-h incubation steps) by increasing the concentration of assay reagents fourfold. These results support the idea that existing microtiter plate assays can be transferred to rapid dot immunoassay formats with little or no loss of sensitivity.