APPLICATIONS OF ELISA TECHNIQUE IN MODERN SCIENCE-

BY FATEMA BHINDERWALA

SY.BSC.BIOTECHNOLOGY
Practical in Cell Biology and Immunology

ELISA is a plate based assay technique which is used for detecting and quantifying
substances such as peptides, proteins, antibodies and hormones. An enzyme
conjugated with an antibody reacts with colorless substrate to generate a colored
product.
APPLICATIONS OF ELISA:
1. ELISA based techniques are available and used clinically for testing for the early
stages of cancers – including ovarian and breast cancer.
2. Furthermore, concentrations of illicit drugs, such as cannabinoids, amphetamines,
opiates, cocaine, benzodiazepines, and methadone, can be determined using ELISA
in urine samples.
3. ELISA is also frequently used to test for the detection of hormone human chorionic
gonadotrophin (hCG) in urine, which is higher in women that are pregnant, thus
allowing for easy access and home testing capabilities.
4. Detection of platelet antibodies in serum is used to identify patients suffering
from disorders. ELISA for antigen detection is better than virus isolation because it is
faster and more sensitive.
5. ELISA is used in both experimental and diagnostic virology. It is a highly sensitive
assay that can detect proteins at the picomolar to nanomolar range. It is the
mainstay for the diagnosis of infections by many different viruses, including HIV-1,
HTLV-1, adenovirus, and cytomegalovirus.
6. ELISA was the first universal testing kit for HIV and employs the detection of
human serum cystatin C to identify patients who are positive.
7. ELISA is popularly used in the food industry to detect the presence of allergens for
legally required ingredient labeling. This application benefits greatly from the
sensitivity of ELISA and can detect levels of potential food allergen contaminants at
concentrations on the low parts per million (ppm) scale.
8. ELISA also has the advantage of being able to test for oils and other substances
like egg whites or milk, which alternative methods such as PCR are unable to detect.
9. ELISA screening techniques are widely utilized by toxicologists to screen forensic
specimens for drugs of abuse. These immunoassays are extremely flexible and have
adequate sensitivity to go down to the drug levels found in most forensic matrices.
10. ELISA techniques are used as quality control tool in manufacturing of
biopharmaceutical and in various pharmaceuticals manufacturing
11. A novel form of indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) has been
devised for the detection of viruses in plants. The method uses protein A in two
applications to sandwich antibody-antigen-antibody layers.
12. Elisa can be used to detect and Estimate the Levels of Tumor Markers such as
Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and Carcinoembryonic Antigen (CEA)
13. It can be used for screening Donated Blood for Possible Viral Contaminants like
anti-HIV-1/2, anti-HCV and HBsAg.