| abstract |
The preparation of a new water-soluble cross-linked conjugates and cross-linked conjugate complexes improves the detection ability of immunochemical assays, including lateral flow devices, and relies on a "salting-out" process in which a reversible precipitate is formed at lyotropic salt concentrations greater than 1 M and coincides with a cross-linking of the backbone of the water-soluble intermediate conjugate. The backbone which consists of polysaccharides, including dextrans, is linked to a signal component, such as a dye, that produces a colour, via a bifunctional linker component, such as epichlorohydrin or divinyl sulfone, and optionally through a protein spacer component such as ovalbumin (OA) or bovine serum albumin (BSA). The cross-linking of the dextrans occurs via the linker component, during the "salting-out" process to give, in the presence of suitable targets such as antibodies or antigens, water-soluble cross-linked conjugates and cross-linked conjugate complexes. <IMAGE> |