Standardisation of metalloimmunoassay protocols for assessment of silver nanoparticle antibody conjugates.

The application of silver nanoparticles to electrochemical metalloimmunoassays has previously been reported (Szymanski et al., 2009) and is now used in the electrochemical Argento immunoassay platform via UK Patent No. 2458420. The development of an immunoassay in this format requires the optimisation of the antibody to silver nanoparticle conjugation process. Issues such as pH, antibody concentration and other factors can affect the assay performance. In order to determine the effect of these variables it is necessary to understand and control the effects of other factors that may affect the assay signal. In this study a number of conditions which affect the assay signal were identified and methods developed to minimise variability in the assay signal, resulting in a standardised method allowing easy comparisons of silver nanoparticle conjugates prepared and assayed at different times.