Interactions of complement fraction C1q, fibronectin, and immunoglobulin G with polyacrylic microparticles used as...

A microparticle-enhanced nephelometric immunoassay was recently described, where polyacrylic, hydrophilic, and polyfunctional microparticles are used as the solid phase. It is a one-step immunoassay based on the nephelometric quantification of microparticle agglutination. In such assays, the measurement of analytes at low concentration may be impaired by the need of using undiluted biological samples. This leads to work with high concentrations of several proteins liable to interfere with the agglutination process. In this paper, we report on a study performed with human serum and purified proteins, which were assayed by classical analytical methods. This work identified three major components of human serum specifically involved in yielding polyacrylic microparticle instability: complement fraction C1q, fibronectin, and immunoglobulins G. In this order of importance, they all showed a marked ability to be adsorbed on the microparticle's surface. Pretreatment of human serum with microparticles decreased the concentrations in C1q (82%), fibronectin (16%), and immunoglobulin G (4%) very unequally. However, it allowed the elimination of microparticle instability, consequently providing the possible use of such polyacrylic microparticles in a one-step nephelometric immunoassay of analytes at low concentration in biological samples, without washes or phase separation.