Rapid viral diagnosis by DOT-immunobinding

The need for precise and rapid laboratory diagnosis, particularly of viral disease, has stimulated an interest in developing methodologies that would be of value for the immediate care of the patient and for instituting necessary public health control measures. The dot-immunobinding assay (DIA) offers such a procedure. The binding capacity of nitrocellulose (NC) has been used for the detection of proteins and it has been demonstrated that NC sheets may be dotted with crude viral antigens to detect antibody directly. The DIA is a simple enzyme-linked immunoassay for the rapid detection of viral antigens and antibodies without the need for specialized equipment or containment. Antigens considered to be highly pathogenic may be inactivated with a psoralen derivative and long-wavelength UV light irradiation.