Walkthrough And Basic Definition Of Thyroid ELISA Kits

By Jocelyn Davidson


ELISA is a medical test used in the enclosure of laboratories to figure out if a person has any certain disease or condition. It is an abbreviation from Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay, where it tests the presence of certain protein molecules in a sample. Its main purpose is for testing the immunity of a patient.

One of these examples is for HIV, where it finds antibodies related to the virus inside the blood. Another would be for the thyroid glands, and the common equipment that are used in laboratories are Thyroid ELISA kits. These kits are used for studying the thyroid glands, as well as other types of kits are used for other body parts.

In general, ELISA is also used for tests in illegal drug use. It also helps determine the allergic reactions towards food for a person. It is widely used as a tool in plant pathology, and also in quality control check in some industries. How to determine this is through the intensity of the color change of each sample of the patient.

There are two most common types of ELISA tests. The indirect detects protein or the antibody and the example for this is as what was mentioned, HIV tests. The other one is the capture or sandwich. It detects the antigen by capturing them between two antibodies. The hormone human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG, is detected using sandwich. One example of this would be pregnancy tests.

Blood is the usual collection, as well as urine samples. These samples are then placed in a test tube or test slide, and then sent to the laboratory for the testing and analysis. At the laboratory, it will be tested if the targeted antigen or antibody is present within the blood or urine.

The human blood samples inside the test tubes will be placed in a centrifuge to separate the different parts of it and for it to get a blood serum. A blood serum is a sample that has the clotting feature taken out of it. The high speed from the centrifuge separates the cells and plasma, making it easier to extract the serum.

There are enzyme substrate combinations that can be used for detection. The one enzyme used the most is Horseradish Peroxidase. This cleaves or separates the substrate molecules Ortho Phenylenediamine Dihydrochloride, or OPD, and Tetramethylbenzidine, or TMB, from each other. The result would be a yellow color when these two are separated. Then a plate reader is used to measure the optical density.

In cases where the patient has revealed to have a disease or other conditions, the sample will have antibodies for that specific disease. The antibodies will then attach to these antigens that are the bonding agents in these ELISA tests. The samples would then be cleaned or washed away with a different solution so that the remaining in the sample would be the antigens or the antibodies that are clinging to the antigens.

Color changes, as mentioned before, are where you can achieve the results. Enzyme solutions are applied in the samples to get these results if they give out a positive result or not. There might be some instances where the sample from the patient has no known infection or disease but the test still outputs a positive result, this is known as a false positive. Even though this is possible, ELISA tests are definitely reliable and commonly used as well, which is considered by the immunology community.




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