A computerized semi-automatic evaluation system for quantitation of electroimmunoassays

Abstract

A fast and accurate evaluation system for quantitation of plasma proteins from electroimmunoassay plates is described. The protein concentration is determined from the height of its stained antigen-antibody precipitate by means of a coordinate digitizer connected to a COMPUCORP 445 minicomputer. The plasma protein concentration is calculated from the equation of the best second-order least square regression of data from a standard dilution curve. The values from one type of protein analysis can either be stored on a discette for future examination or printed out each day in a tabular form on a typewriter. A double evaluation of plasma concentrations from plates of two different proteins showed a coefficient of variation (CV) better than 4.5%. A correlation between values obtained by this technique and those obtained by the manual reading procedure has also been done. The correlation coefficient varied between 0.95 and 0.99 depending on the type of protein.

Key Words:

• automation
• computers
• electroimmunoassays
• quantitation