AGGLUTINATION
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Agglutination
• The interaction between antibody and a
particulate antigen results in visible clumping
called agglutination
• Particulate antigen include: • bacteria,
• white blood cells,
• red blood cells,
• latex particles
• Antibodies that produce such reactions are
called agglutinins
• If an agglutination reaction involves red blood
cells, then it is called hemagglutination
RBCs Antigens
Antigens (Bacteria)
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Agglutinin and Agglutinogen
• Agglutinin:• It is an antibody that interacts with antigen on the
surface of particles such as erythrocytes, bacteria, or
latex particles to cause their agglutination in an
aqueous environment
• Agglutinogen• It is an antigen on the surface of particles such as red
blood cells that react with the antibody known as
agglutinin to produce agglutination• The most widely known agglutinogens are those of the ABO and
related blood group systems
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Applications
• Agglutination reactions now have a wide variety of applications in the detection of both antigens and antibodies including: • blood grouping, • diagnosis of infectious diseases • measure levels of certain therapeutic drugs, hormones,
and plasma proteins
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Testing Abs & Ags
• The agglutination reaction may be used to identify the antibody or antigen in a patient sample
• When testing for antibody, the antigen concentration is constant for each dilution being tested
• When testing for antigen, the antibody concentration is constant for each dilution being tested
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Agglutination & Precipitation
• Agglutination reactions are similar in principle to precipitation reactions; they depend on the cross linking of polyvalent antigens with the exception that:• Precipitation reactions involve soluble antigens, while
agglutination involves particulate antigens
• Pecipitation reactions represent a phase change, while the agglutination reactions manifest as clumping of antigen/ antibody complexes
• Agglutination is more sensitive than precipitation
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Advantages of Agglutination Techniques
• The agglutination reaction has wide spread use in the clinical
laboratory due to the following reasons:• they are simple• inexpensive• reliable• The visible manifestation of the agglutination reaction eliminates the need
for complex procedures and expensive instrumentation
• Numerous techniques have been described for agglutination tests,
these techniques may be performed using: • slides, • test tubes, • or micotiter plates, depending on the purpose of the test
• However the principle of the agglutination remain the same
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Qualitative and Quantitative Techniques
• Qualitative agglutination test• Semi-quantitative agglutination test
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Qualitative Agglutination Test• Agglutination tests can be used in a qualitative manner
to assay for the presence of an antigen or an antibody • The antibody is mixed with the particulate antigen and
a positive test is indicated by the agglutination of the particulate antigen• For example, a patient’s red blood cells can be mixed with
antibody to a blood group antigen to determine a person’s blood type
• In a second example, a patient’s serum is mixed with red blood cells with virus Ags to assay for the presence of antibodies to that virus in the patient’s serum
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Semi-Quantitative Agglutination Test
• Agglutination tests can also be used to quantitate the level of antibodies to particulate antigens
• In this test:• one makes serial dilutions of a sample to be tested for antibody • and then adds a fixed number of red blood cells or bacteria or
other such particulate antigen • then determines the maximum dilution, which gives agglutination
• The maximum dilution that gives visible agglutination is called the titer
• The results are reported as the reciprocal of the maximal dilution that gives visible agglutination
• This can be done using a microtiter plate
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Semi-Quantitative Agglutination Test
1/2
1/4
1/8
1/16
1/32
1/64
1/128
1/256
1/512
1/1024
Pos.
Neg.
Titer
64
8
512
<2
32
128
32
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Patient
1
2
3
4
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7
8
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Steps in Agglutination• Agglutination is a two-step process that results in the
formation of a stable lattice network
1. Sensitization• The first reaction involves antigen-antibody combination through
single antigenic determinants on the particle surface and is often called sensitization
2. Lattice formation• The second step is the formation of cross-links that form the visible
aggregates• This represents the stabilization of antigen–antibody complexes
with the binding together of multiple antigenic determinants
• Each stage of the process is affected by different factors, and it is important to understand these in order to manipulate and enhance end points for such reactions
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1- Sensitization
• Antibody molecules attach to their corresponding Antigenic site (epitope) on the particle
• There is no visible clumping
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2- Lattice Formation
• Antibody molecules crosslink the particles forming a lattice that results in visible clumping or agglutination
Crosslinking Abs
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Factors that Affect Agglutination• Buffer pH• The relative concentration of Antibody and Antigen• Location and concentration of Antigenic Determinants
on the Particle• Electrostatic Interactions between Particles• Electrolyte Concentration• Antibody Isotype• Temperature
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Hemagglutination• The agglutination of red blood cells by either
• direct agglutination • or indirect agglutination
• Direct agg. Ag is an intrinsic component of RBC• Indirect agg. Soluble Ags are adsorbed to the RBC• There are 3 ways in which Ags can be bound to
RBCs:1. Spontaneous adsorption of Ags by RBCs
2. Covalent binding using chemical links
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The Latex particles• Latex particles are usually prepared by emulsion polymerization
• Styrene (unsaturated liquid hydrocarbon) is mixed with a surfactant (sodium dodecyl sulfate) solution, resulting emulsified in billions of micelles extremely uniform in diameter
• When the polymerization is finished, polystyrene chains are arranged into the micelles with the hydrocarbon part in the center and the terminal sulfate ions on the surface of the sphere, exposed to the water phase
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The Latex Particles• Black ball chains represents
polystyrene with sulfate free radicals (shaded balls)
• Blue balls denote the sulfonic acid group of the SDS
• Tail represent the hydrocarbon tail
• The simplest method of attaching proteins to the particles is by passive adsorption
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Latex Agglutination
• In latex agglutination procedures, an antibody (or antigen) coats the surface of latex particles (sensitized latex)
• When a sample containing the specific antigen (or antibody) is mixed with the milky-appearing sensitized latex, it causes visible agglutination
Negative
Positive
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Viral Hemagglutination• Many viruses have nonserological hemagglutinating
properties• They can agglutinate RBCs in the absence of Ab (non-
immune agglutination)• Mammalian reoviruses agglutinate erythrocytes through
interactions between the viral surface protein sigma 1 and carbohydrate groups attached to proteins on erythrocyte membranes
• Hemagglutination (HA) can be used to• determine titers of certain viruses
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Types of Agglutination
• Direct Agglutination• Indirect or Passive Agglutination• Reverse Passive Agglutination• Agglutination Inhibition • Coagglutination
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Direct Agglutination• In this reaction the antigen is an intrinsic
component of the particle• The agglutination test is used to determine
whether antibody, specific for the antigen is present in the biological fluids• serum• urine • or CSF
• Direct agglutination tests are used primarily for diagnosis of infectious diseases
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Passive or Indirect Agglutination• Employs particles that are coated with
antigens not normally found on their surfaces
• Antigen has been affixed or adsorbed to the particle surface
• A variety of particles, including erythrocytes, latex and others are used for this purpose
• The use of synthetic beads or particles provides the advantage of consistency, uniformity, and stability
• Passive agglutination tests have been used to detect antibodies to viruses such as:• cytomegalovirus, rubella, varicella-zoster,
and HIV-1/HIV-2
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• In reverse passive agglutination,
antibody rather than antigen is
attached to a carrier particle
• The antibody must still be reactive
and is joined in such a manner that
the active sites are facing outward
• This type of testing is often used to
detect microbial antigens
• Latex particle coated with Ab
(known) + serum looking for
particular Ag
• If Ag present, then visible
agglutination is observed
Reverse Passive Agglutination
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Reverse Passive Agglutination
• Numerous kits are available for rapid identification of antigens on infectious agents
• Such tests used for organisms that • are difficult to grow • or when rapid identification is required
• Testing of specimens for the presence of viral antigens has still not reached the sensitivity of enzyme immunoassays
• But for infections in which a large amount of viral antigen is present, such as rotavirus and enteric adenovirus in infants, latex agglutination tests are extremely useful
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Agglutination Inhibition
• Agglutination inhibition reactions are based on competition between particulate and soluble antigens for limited antibody-combining sites
• The lack of agglutination is an indicator of a positive reaction
• The technique is called hemagglutination inhibition if the particle in the reaction is a RBC
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Agglutination Inhibition - Positive
• Tube containing free known Ab specific for the Ag to be detected
• Patient has Ag and will combine with Ab • No visible agglutination
• Latex beads coated with same Ag to be detected is added
• It has nothing to attach to• No visible reaction
• Therefore agglutination inhibition is positive
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Agglutination inhibition - Negative
• Tube containing free known Ab• Patient serum does not contain
Ag• therefore no combination
• Latex beads coated with same Ag to be detected is added
• Visible agglutination, • Therefore agglutination inhibition
is negative
Positive Negative
Hemagglutination inhibition for detection of influenza antibodies
Hemagglutination Inhibition
Antibodies to the virus in the patient serum bind to the virus; blocks binding sites on the viral surfaces
• prevents the virus from agglutinating the red cells
Example• detecting antibodies to
influenza
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Coagglutination
• The name given to systems using bacteria as the inert particles to which antibody is attached
• Staphylococcus aureus is most frequently used, because it has a protein on its outer surface, called protein A which naturally adsorbs the FC portion of antibody molecules
• The Fab region is free to interact with antigens present in the applied specimens
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HEPATITIS B SURFACE ANTIBODY DETECTION
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Summary
• Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) is the first serologic marker, appearing in the serum 6 to 16 weeks following HBV infection
• In acute cases, HBsAg usually disappears 1 to 2 months after the onset of symptoms with the appearance of hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs)
• Anti-HBs also appears as the immune response following hepatitis B vaccination
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Principle
• When used by recommended technique, reagent will agglutinate in presence of Abs to HBV
• No agglutination generally indicates absence of Abs
• Test cells are preserved avian erythrocytes coated with Ags of HB
• Any non-specific reaction should be detected using the control cells• Avian erythrocytes not coated with Ags of HB
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Procedure for Qualitative Screening Technique
1. Each specimen requires 3 wells of a microtiter plate
2. To well 1 add 190 µl of diluent and 10 µl of serum, -ve or +ve controls
3. Using a pipette, mix contents of well 1 and transfer 25 µl to wells 2 & 3
4. Resuspend both test and control cells and then add 75 µl of control cells to well 2 & 75 µl of test cells to well 3
5. Tap the plate gently to mix the contents making sure to avoid cross contamination
6. Incubate the plate for 45-60 minutes at RT keeping the plate away from heat, direct sunlight & any source of vibration
7. Read and record the results, the results are stable for 24 hours if the plate is covered
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Interpretation of Results
Results Test cells Control cells
Strong Positive Full cell pattern covering the bottom of the well
No agglutination, tight button
Weak Positive Cell pattern coves 1/3 of well bottom
No agglutination, tight button
Intermediate Cell pattern shows distinctly open center
No agglutination, tight button
Negative Cells settled to a compact button
No agglutination, tight button
Non-Specific Positive reaction Positive reaction
Reference Values• Hepatitis B Surface Antibody
• Unvaccinated: negative• Vaccinated: positive
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