Health is wealth. You must have come across this maxim right from your childhood. Unfortunately, not many of us pay attention to the internal aspects of our health. As a result, the diseases inside us expand and grow to a level from which there is no coming back. To understand the mechanisms inside your body, sometimes doctors ask you to undergo some tests. A similar one in this category is the immunoassays test. The purpose of this test is to figure out the analyte concentration in a human body.
All the components that emanate from a human body are known as an analyte. Generally, doctors consider this analyte as a protein, an antibody, or a small molecule that resulted from the production of a disease or infection occurring in the human body. It is through the immunoassays test that doctors and other medical practitioners can detect the analyte.
Since many of you are not aware of the immunoassays test, we have come up with a blog. In this blog, we will share with you everything that you ought to know about the immunoassay test. Therefore, without any further delay, let’s get into the details of the blog.
What is an immunoassay?
Better known as IA, an immunoassay is a biochemical test. This test aims to measure the concentration of small molecular structures in human bodily fluids. To perform this test accurately, the doctors use an antigen or antibody, depending on the situation and condition of the patient. For certain cases, an immunoassay test may be performed by using an antigen to find the antibodies. On the other hand, sometimes, the analyte may perform the function of an antibody instead of an antigen.
Tracing back to the history of the immunoassay test, Solomon Berson and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow are the inventors of this test during the 1950s. immunoassay tests can be of a variety of types. Irrespective of the kind of test, it binds a particular macromolecule depending on the capabilities of an antibody. Apart from accumulating an antigen into an antibody, another primary feature of the immunoassays test is to come up with a signal. This signal is measurable and occurs as a responsive action to the binding of both antigen and antibody.
Types of immunoassays
As mentioned earlier, several types of immunoassays have developed from time to time. Precisely, all four types of immunoassays further have subcategories. Some of the new techniques are still under heavy research. However, let’s take a quick look at all the different types of immunoassays as discussed below.
- Enzyme immunoassay (EIA) or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
- Radioimmunoassay (RIA)
- Fluoroimmunoassay (FIA)
- Chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA)
Now, let’s discuss each one of them individually.
- Enzyme immunoassay (EIA) or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
The simplest form of immunoassays is the enzyme immunoassays. This is the most commonly practiced that depends largely on interactions between particular antibodies and antigens and their response to each other. The purpose of this test is to identify and measure soluble molecules like hormones, proteins, and antibodies. The enzyme immunoassay has four subcategories:
- Sandwich assay
- Competitive assay
- Direct assay
- Indirect assay
The attachment of the antibody to the solid plate is different for all these four types of enzyme immunoassays. Naturally, the signal produced as a response will also differ. For a sandwich assay, immobilization of an antibody is done on the plate. But for other types of enzyme assays, the immobilization is done separately.
- Radioimmunoassay (RIA)
In a radioimmunoassay, doctors employ radio-labeled antigens for measuring the substance concentration in human bodily fluids like blood, saliva, etc. In this test, the doctor uses a radioisotope to attach it and bind it to an antigen and antibody respectively. Next, he adds a sample to the targeted antigen to make it compete and fight back with the radioactive antigen.
After a while, the doctor removes all the unbound antigens to get an accurate measurement of the sample’s radioactivity. Unlike the other immunoassay tests, the radioimmunoassay test requires some extra precaution as it uses radioactive substances. Carelessness while performing this test can lead to accidental results.
- Fluoroimmunoassay (FIA)
As you can understand from the name, the Fluoroimmunoassay test uses fluorescent compounds for the steady and accurate detection and measurement of various body compounds. The in vitro diagnostic industry highly uses the Fluoroimmunoassay test for its variety of advantages. Compared to the other testing methods, this takes less time and is extremely sensitive. So, you can expect to get better and more accurate results.
In the Fluoroimmunoassay test, doctors use fluorescent probes to label the antibodies. These fluorescent dyes emanate UV lights. With the illumination of UV lights, doctors can detect the binding of an antigen to an antibody. Once the incubation of the antigen is complete, the antibody-antigen binding is put under isolation to measure the intensity of the fluorescent.
- Chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA)
The working principle of the chemiluminescence immunoassay test is very similar to that of the enzyme immunoassay test. However, there is a slight difference between the two. In the chemiluminescence immunoassay test, the doctors ignite the electronic reaction to produce high energy with the help of a chemical reaction. On the other hand, the Fluoroimmunoassay test uses some light frequencies to amp up the reaction.
Being highly specific and sensitive in nature, chemiluminescence functions effectively in a variety of fields such as disease diagnosis, environmental monitoring, the food safety industry, and life sciences. With the addition of the magnetic bead-based chemiluminescence immunoassay, now, it has a wider and more expanded scope.
Conclusion
Therefore, immunoassay tests provide a wider scope in terms of medical treatment and detection. However, the type of immunoassay test you require will be determined by your health condition. You can book an immunoassay test at Doyen Diagnostic to get a better idea about the antigen-antibody binding and similar other components in your body.
Make sure to undergo the test from a reputed clinic to get accurate results. After all, it is with the help of these results that the doctor will design a plan of treatment.
