Quantification of measles virus antigens in infected CNS tissue: development of an enzyme linked immunoassay.

An enzyme linked immunoassay procedure has been developed which allows accurate quantification of low levels of measles virus antigens in infected central nervous system (CNS) tissues. In its development a systematic study was made of the effects of a large excess of nonviral proteins on the assay results. It was found that controls using single proteins such as bovine serum albumin were inadequate. Further, results indicate that experimental samples and viral antigen standards must be closely matched for their content of CNS tissue proteins since such proteins exert distinctive quantitative effects, both dramatic and subtle.