Immunogold Detection System for Tumor Markers

Current immunocytochemical assays (ICA) possess inherent defects including lack of sensitivity and specificity, fading and impermanence of preparations (fluorescence), carcinogenic potential (diaminobenzidine), or by reacting with endogenous biological materials (phosphatases, peroxidases, biotin), thus confounding detection of specific antigen. Most of these problems can be alleviated by the employment of a new immuno- gold-silver staining method which utilizes 1nm gold particles and novel silver enhancement techniques (CGSS). However, there are no available kits on the market which utilize this new technology at the present time. This project is designed to formulate CGSS kits which employ the new reagents and evaluate them by comparison with others employing different ICA systems. It is believed that such kits would be able to capture a sizeable segment of the multimillion dollar ICA market.