Antigen detection using polymerization-based amplification.

The influenza virus has been subtyped from crude lysates using polymerization-based amplification. In this novel chemical approach to detection, signal amplification was achieved by coupling a polymerization reaction to a protein-protein recognition event. This particular method shows promise due to its advantages over the techniques currently employed in commercial assays in terms of cost, robustness, and unambiguity of test results. Instrumentation is not required to see the crosslinked hydrogel "readout", and no false positives or false negatives were observed above the limit of detection.