Understanding ELISA Tests: What’s In the Kit?

Humanity has witnessed many breakthroughs in the medical field. From what used to be the incurable smallpox disease to the continuing pursuit for the remedy to AIDS, the field of medicine continues to flourish with new scientific discoveries. Among these are the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay test, more commonly known as the ELISA test. This test serves the purpose of pinpointing antibodies. This is done by determining a certain immunoglobulin linked to various diseases.

The ELISA test has many features worthy of discussion. However, this article aims to talk about ELISA kits — what they are and what they are for. Read on if you wish to know more about these medical instruments. 

What is an ELISA test?

Essentially, an ELISA test is utilized more in initial diagnoses compared to more extensive assessments and other tests during the prognosis stage. This implies its function in probing on whether or not a patient carries allergies to certain varieties of medicine or food and the possibility of a patient being reactive with the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV.

This is done through an assessment of the human body and the way it responds to specific antigens. Depending on whether or not the enzymes catalyze an antigen-antibody reaction, the analysis may present a negative or positive result.

In the present day, the ELISA test is widely used in diagnosing certain health disorders such as squamous cell carcinoma, rotavirus, Zika, varicella-zoster virus, and syphilis. The test’s features in being able to track and pick out the presence of antibodies or harmful agents in a specific sample allow for it to determine certain diseases a person may be carrying.

The ELISA test kit

ELISA test kits contain all you could ever need for your ELISA test. Like the usual ELISA tests in your go-to hospital, these kits are equipped with different apparatus capable of detecting a wide array of antigens, peptides, proteins, and harmful agents in the body.

What’s amazing about these kits is that they vary depending on the subject of the test. Currently, there are ELISA kits available for a number of species. You can avail of kits meant for avians, bovines, canines, porcine, primates, felines, equines, rodents, and of course, humans. With these variations in ELISA kits, it is clear that its purposes go beyond medication. As a matter of fact, ELISA kits continue to be used as instruments of scientific research not only entirely related to the field of medicine.

What’s in an ELISA kit?

So much has already been said about ELISA kits but none of them really tell us about what’s in them. Among these components are the following:

ELISA plates

Flat-bottomed plates made from polyvinyl chloride or polystyrene are utilized in ELISA tests. Usually, these are frames in the size of a 96-well plate containing 8-well or 12-well strips. Other variations include a 384-well and 1536-well plates, both of which have the capacity to have more samples processed per plate.

ELISA buffer

Buffers in an ELISA test come in three kinds: coating buffers, blocking buffers, and washing buffers. While buffers are a part of the kit, these can also be a D-I-Y tool you can make at home.

ELISA antibodies

The antibodies used in ELISA tests can either be polyclonal, monoclonal or a combination of both. Each of these varieties influences the test in various ways. Hence, it is a must to consider their differences and how they can be utilized to achieve the best results from the ELISA test.

ELISA kits come in various shapes and sizes. There are kits that contain more components than others. However, no matter what type of kit you intend to avail or what test subject you have, you’ll always have the guarantee of getting all the equipment you need in one kit.

ELISA kits and their many uses

In the field of medicine, ELISA kits have proven to be beneficial in seeking out possible diseases in patients. With accuracy and precision, these tests help physicians in determining the possible health conditions their patients are experiencing. ELISA tests rule out certain cases until it results in an accurate description of the actual disorder the patient suffers from.

On the other side of the spectrum, ELISA kits have also made breakthroughs in fields not entirely related to medicine. This test has been discovered for its use in detecting viruses and other harmful components thriving in human food. Various proteins are also being studied thanks to the ELISA test.

Final Thoughts

Without a shadow of a doubt, ELISA tests through ELISA kits are one of the many medical breakthroughs that help save lives to this day. As technology continues to evolve, so do the functions of ELISA tests where more and more of their uses are discovered with each passing day. What could possibly be the next disease ELISA tests can remedy? Only time will tell.