Development of a radioimmunoassay for human metallothionein

We report the development of a radioimmunoassay (RIA) for human metallothionein (MT). The MT was isolated from the liver of a patient with primary biliary cirrhosis and used to raise high titer antibodies in rabbits. The RIA was developed using Bolton-Hunter labeled MT as label and purified MT as standard. The detection limit of the assay was 0.4 ng/ml and concentrations between 0.8 and 100 ng/ml could be routinely measured. Dilutions of plasma samples containing high endogenous MT concentrations and tissue extracts in assay buffer showed parallelism with the standard curve and MT added to plasma could be fully recovered.