Depressed Antithrombin III (AT) levels Increase thrombic tendency in man, therefore value in assaying this protein has been established. Immunochemical analysis of AT in clinical disease has however proved controversial, consequently systematic studies were undertaken to rationalize the requirements necessary to optimise these methods in particular electro-Immunoassay. The known binding affinity of AT for heparin has been exploited to differentiate high affinity AT from its inhibitor - protease complexes and has resulted in reports stating that heparin added to the agar gel prior to electrophoresis significantly reduces the time required for completion of antigen/antibody complexes. Our studies however have demonstrated that the antibody required for quantitative analysis must be capable of not only reacting with “native” antigenic determinants of AT but also with “neo” antigens that are exposed when inhibitor-protease complexes are formed. Heparin should not be used in the test protocol, for it has a paradoxical effect on Immunopreclpltation in gels, masking some antigenic determinants of unbound - high affinity AT on one hand, and appear to disrupt the Immunoprecipitin “rocket” formed with the inhibitor-protease complexes during electrophoresis on the other.
Immunochemical analysis of oat avenins in an oat cultivar and landrace collection
