Liposome-based immunoaffinity chromatographic assay for the quantitation of immunoglobulin E in human serum

Immunoglobulin E (IgE)-mediated type I allergies affect over 25% of the worldʹs population; they are among the most common diseases in developed countries. Therefore, simple and rapid in vivo and in vitro methods for diagnosing allergies are becoming increasingly important. In this paper, we demonstrate the feasibility of using sulforhodamine B, a fluorescent dye, entrapped inside immunoliposomes, the outer surfaces of which were sensitized with IgE, as a signal amplifier for the development of a simple, rapid, and inexpensive colorimetric affinity chromatographic immunoassay for the detection of total IgE in serum. This assay operates based on competition between standards (or human serum samples) containing IgE and IgE-sensitized immunoliposomes for the limited number of antigen binding sites of immobilized anti-IgE antibodies at the antigen capture (AC) zone on the nitrocellulose membranes. The color density of the AC zone is indirectly proportional to the number of IgE units present in the test sample. The detection limit of this liposome-based immunoaffinity chromatographic assay was 0.37 ng in IgE-free serum solution (equivalent to 20 μL of a 18.5 ng mL−1 solution). A commercially available ELISA kit was used as a reference method to validate the proposed assay through the analysis of three human serum samples.