The standardization of a 'spot-test' ELISA for the rapid screening of sera and hybridoma cell products II. The determination of binding capacity, binding ratio and coefficient of variation of different ELISA plates in sandwich and indirect ELISA.

The different commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) plates were compared for their binding capacity for purified foot-and-mouth disease virus antigen or IgG, their binding ratio (a measure of the efficiency with which positive and negative serum samples may be distinguished), and their coefficients of variation within a plate, between plates and between batches of plates. No one plate could be described as having ideal characteristics, and the choice of ELISA plate depends on the use to which the ELISA is being put. For our purposes, viz. a 'spot-test' which rapidly and efficiently detects specific antibody when the levels of that antibody are low (hybridoma culture supernatants) or when the antibody is contaminated with other 'interfering' proteins (high concentrations of serum), we found that most of the PVC plates and, of the polystyrene plates, the Nunc Immunoplate I and Dynatech M129B plates performed well. The lowest coefficients of variation were obtained using Nunc Immunoplate I, Dynatech M129B and Falcon 3912 plates.