ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a number of the commercially available systems based on type of antibody detection: Radioimmunoassay, Fluoroimmunoassay, or Enzyme Immunoassay. The development and increased use of monoclonal antibodies will increase both sensitivity and specificity of serodiagnostic procedures while improvements in automation will further increase test sensitivity and reproducibility. Major efforts have been made in development of automated instruments for the clinical laboratory, especially chemistry and hematology analyses. However few instruments were available for use in microbiology and serology. Instrumentation has been developed for use in miniaturized a serologic testing system that is microdilution tests. More fluorometric instruments for serology will be developed as fluorophores yielding greater sensitivity and stability are discovered and developed. These instruments may use standard fluorometers or may be developed to include nitrogen laser methodology in which a high intensity, monochromatic light beam excites the fluorophore. The most common enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays methods used for serodiagnosis of infectious diseases are "sandwich" antigen assays and "sandwich" antibody assays.
