Clinical Chemistry, Vol 23, 1444-1448, Copyright © 1977 by American Association for Clinical Chemistry

Enzyme immunoassays with the miniature centrifugal fast analyzer

FD Lasky, KK Ahuja and A Karmen

We studied the EMIT (Enzyme Multiplied Immunoassay Technique, Syva) procedures for the assay of phenytoin and phenobarbital in serum, adapting them to the miniature Centrifugal Fast Analyzer. For different concentrations of drug, each rate of reaction decreased continuously with time, tending to converge on a single common value. The rate was most affected by the concentration of drug almost immediately after the reagents were mixed, less so thereafter. The antibody evidently is present in sufficient excess to bind all the enzyme-labeled drug ordinarily present, but the antibody-bound enzyme was only 75% inhibited; this helps explain the appreciable residual activity when no drug is present. The reaction course was the same whether the serum and enzyme-labeled drug were added to the antibody sequentially or simultaneously, which suggests that antibody is bound to drug appreciably faster than to enzyme-labeled drug. The reaction rates 15 to 30 s after mixing were used as the measure of the drug concentrations. These results were confirmed by noting the rates at successive 15-s intervals. The analyzer yielded a run-to-run CV of 10% for phenobarbital at 30 mg/liter, and 9% for phenytoin at 15 mg/liter, as compared to the 15% quoted by Syva.