Development and testing of radio and enzyme immunoassays for acidic fibroblast growth factor (aFGF)

✍ Scribed by Daniele Caruelle; Jacques Grassi; Jose Courty; Beatrice Groux-Muscatelli; Philippe Pradelles; Denis Barritault; Jean-Pierre Caruelle

• Book ID: 102985039
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 989 KB
• Volume: 173
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-2697
• DOI: 10.1016/0003-2697(88)90197-2

✦ Synopsis

Acidic fibroblast growth factor (aFGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor from bovine brain stimulate growth in a variety of tissues in several species. Despite the 55% amino acid sequence homology of the two forms of FGF, a specific immunoassay of aFGF has been developed using a polyclonal antibody raised in a rabbit. Two immunoassays were compared: a radioimmunoassay (RIA) using 125I aFGF and an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) using aFGF coupled to the tetrameric form of acetylcholinesterase (aFGF-AchE) as tracer. With EIA, the detection limit was 1.5 ng/ml, versus 2.2 ng/ml with RIA, while the dose at 50% was 5.9 ng/ml for EIA and 9.6 ng/ml for RIA. Using a modified EIA procedure where aFGF-AchE was added 2 h after the other reagents, the dose at 50% binding was 1.5 ng/ml. Examples of the performance of both immunoassays are presented for various brain extracts of different species including human. The aFGF content obtained by these methods correlates (CR = 0.987) with the values obtained by biological assay.