Walkthrough And Basic Definition Of Thyroid ELISA Kits

By Jocelyn Davidson


ELISA is a medical test used in the enclosure of laboratories to figure out if a person has any certain disease or condition. It is an abbreviation from Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay, where it tests the presence of certain protein molecules in a sample. Its main purpose is for testing the immunity of a patient.

One of these examples is for HIV, where it finds antibodies related to the virus inside the blood. Another would be for the thyroid glands, and the common equipment that are used in laboratories are Thyroid ELISA kits. These kits are used for studying the thyroid glands, as well as other types of kits are used for other body parts.

In general, ELISA is also used for tests in illegal drug use. It also helps determine the allergic reactions towards food for a person. It is widely used as a tool in plant pathology, and also in quality control check in some industries. How to determine this is through the intensity of the color change of each sample of the patient.

There are two most common types of ELISA tests. The indirect detects protein or the antibody and the example for this is as what was mentioned, HIV tests. The other one is the capture or sandwich. It detects the antigen by capturing them between two antibodies. The hormone human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG, is detected using sandwich. One example of this would be pregnancy tests.

Blood is the usual collection, as well as urine samples. These samples are then placed in a test tube or test slide, and then sent to the laboratory for the testing and analysis. At the laboratory, it will be tested if the targeted antigen or antibody is present within the blood or urine.

A centrifuge is used to make a blood serum which is used during the tests. The centrifuge would separate the compositions of the blood which are the cells and the plasma. A blood serum is the actual sample used in tests, and the clotting feature is actually taken out already.

There are enzyme substrate combinations that can be used for detection. The one enzyme used the most is Horseradish Peroxidase. This cleaves or separates the substrate molecules Ortho Phenylenediamine Dihydrochloride, or OPD, and Tetramethylbenzidine, or TMB, from each other. The result would be a yellow color when these two are separated. Then a plate reader is used to measure the optical density.

When the patient is thought to have a known disease or condition, the blood or urine sample will have specific antibodies which will react to the testings. These antibodies will latch itself to the antigens which are the specific bonding agents in the test. After that, the samples will be washed with a solution in order for it to remove everything else except for the antigens or also the antibodies.

Enzyme solutions would then be applied to the sample to determine if the color changes accordingly whether there it is a positive or negative result. Although there is a possibility for the test samples to return a false positive. This is when the sample of the patient does not have the infection but returns with a positive result. But regardless, ELISA tests are still considered the most reliable in the immunology community.




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