Glow discharge treatment of nitrocellulose membranes increases the immunoassay sensitivity

Abstract

Plasma treatment can make the surfaces of the materials more hydrophilic and improve the surface and adsorption properties. Our research shows that the glow discharge treatment of nitrocellulose membranes improves the adsorption capacity for antibodies by a factor of 15-17 and increases the sensitivity of immunoassay (dot-blotting) performed on the membranes approximatively by an order of magnitude. This feature has been demonstrated for the interleukin-1 beta immunoassay with chemiluminescent detection. Upon glow discharge treatment, the nitrocellulose membranes did not change their structure or chemical composition as can be seen using scanning electron microscopy and IR spectroscopy, respectively. The obtained results can be used to optimize the existing laboratory procedures, especially dot-blotting.