Magnetic enzyme immunoassay of anti-grass pollen specific-IgE in human sera

This paper reports a magnetic solid-phase sandwich enzyme immunoassay for specific IgE antibodies in human sera. Crude extracts of grass pollen bound to magnetic polyacrylamide agarose beads were mixed with human serum to be tested. After washing in a magnetic rack, the beads were incubated with the glucose-oxidase-labelled sheep anti-IgE. The enzyme activity associated with the beads was measured by colorimetric assay. Results obtained from sixty-one human sera, as measured by the magnetic enzyme immunoassay, gave a linear correlation coefficient of 0.98 with the values as determined by radio-immunoassay. This procedure, which allows the grass pollen specific IgE in human sera, to be measured, is easy to perform, reproducible and may avoid the use of radioactive compounds.