Immunoelectrophoretic determination of tear fluid proteins collected by the Schirmer I test.

Using reservoirs containing 50 microliters of antigen solution in combination with a micro-modification of the electroimmunoassay a detection limit of 0.05 ng applied in 400 microliters corresponding to 0.125 ng/ml has been achieved. Tear fluid eluate from Schirmer paper strips has been tested in the assay. The eluation procedure failed to extract all tear proteins as 32 ng were left in the paper. Despite the loss, experiments have shown the method to be suitable for immunological determination of tear proteins collected by the Shirmer I test.