An enzyme linked immunosorbent assay for the detection of human interleukin 3 in serum.

A sandwich enzyme immunoassay was developed for measuring human Interleukin 3 (IL-3) in human and animal sera. Polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies were raised against the recombinant human protein. These have been used to develop an immunoassay which can detect down to 10 pg/ml of human IL-3. The assay involves a polyclonal rabbit antibody coupled to a solid phase and a mouse monoclonal antibody-horseradish peroxidase conjugate as the detection antibody. Unlike the classical bone marrow assay and other cell line based bioassays for IL-3, the immunoassay was specific for the cytokine showing no or only negligible cross-reactivity with IL-1, IL-2, IL-6, erythropoietin, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and GM-CSF. The assay does not exhibit interfering matrix effects when used for the estimation of human IL-3 in serum samples.