Enzyme Linked-Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA)

Overview

ELISA, or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, is a plate-based assay technique used in analytical biochemistry and other fields of study to detect and quantify soluble substances, such as proteins, antibodies, and peptides in complex mixtures.

Originally described by Engvall and Perlmann in 1971,  ELISA enables the analysis of protein and other samples, which have been immobilized in microplate wells using specific antibodies. Immunosorbent assays are typically performed in 96-well or 384-well polystyrene plates that passively bind antibodies and proteins, are simple to design, and easy to perform.

Using reagents to bind and immobilize the proteins to the microplate surface makes the separation of bound and unbound material during the assay much simpler than other separation methods.