Preformed Antigen-Antibody Complex to Detect Antibodies to Hepatitis C Virus, Dinesh Shah, ’ Vince

Traditional chemiluminescence assays for detection of antibodies, if utilizing enhancer compounds, usually in-volve separate incubation steps for reacting the sample and capture reagent, reacting the sample/capture mixture with the conjugate attached to an enhancer compound, and reacting the sample/capture/conjugate mixture with an enhancer-specific binding member, and finally gener-ating a signal (1). We have found that, by forming a “precomplex ” of conjugate and probe (defined below) and performing a two-step assay as described herein, a greater readout signal is generated. The greater signal enhances assay performance, which improves assay sensitivity. To illustrate the use of a preformed complex in immunoassay, we describe below its use in the Abbott PrismTM Hepatitis C virus (HCV) assay; we believe that it can be used fo