Assay development of a serum marker for myocardial injury: experiences with an avian anti-troponin I antibody

Abstract

The diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction is still difficult in certain cases. The measurement of human cardiac Troponin I, a new marker for heart muscle cell necrosis, can help to support current procedures of diagnosis. The detection is usually done with antibodies in a sandwich immunoassay. For development of such a test for human cardiac Troponin I on the automated analyser Technicon Immuno I avian egg yolk antibodies were tested. Antibody preparations from two immunised chicken were tested for content of specific anti-Troponin I antibodies. Following affinity purification against a peptide from the Troponin I sequence the antibodies were conjugated with alkaline phosphatase and used as detector antibodies. The combination with different monoclonal antibodies resulted in standard curves for Troponin I, which were in terms of sensitivity inferior to a commercial polyclonal antibody from goat.