Both react strongly with HCV positive sera; the choice of antigen may be a function of the particular assay format chosen, however, more commonly, it appears that the fusion protein was the antigen of choice. The protein is soluble in aqueous buffer and may be admixed with the HCV capsid antigen prior to coating on to microplate wells. The protein comes as a 500 ug/ml (again setting 1 mg/ml equivalent to an OD (280nm) in Tris buffer, of 1.0). Individual Elisa protocols can be developed, such as Capsid antigen alone (Example 1); NS3 antigen alone (Example 2); or, A combination of antigens (Example 3). Using a Capsid: NS3 ratio of 4:1 in the coating mixture appears to provide the most favorable signal-to-noise ratios in the subsequent assay: Access to the individual antigen component thus enables the determination of precise parameters for an optimized assay.
To view an SDS PAAGE image of this antigen, please click HERE. To review the seroconversion data (using a standard seroconversion panel from Boston Biomedica) analyzed on an Elisa plate simultaneously coated with the HCV capsid and the Non-structural NS3 recombinant polypeptide from Bioprocess Pty Ltd, please click HERE.