The Use of Antifoam Reagents in Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay (ELISA) for Plant Viruses

Abstract

The use of antifoam reagents in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was examined to reduce troubles during the assay for plant virus detection. Antifoams, SI and PE-L were added to a washing buffer (WB), phosphate buffered saline with Tween® 20 (PBST) or a chromogenic substrate, p-nitrophenylphosphate (CS) solution for alkaline phosphatase. The absorbance values for Tomato spotted wilt virus, Zucchini yellow mosaic virus and Rice stripe virus (RSV) measured no difference between PBST with/without antifoams (0.1%) used as WB although those using CS containing antifoams showed higher values. PBST with SI was also effective for the simplified procedure for extraction of RSV. In conclusion, PBST with an antifoam SI is effective to improve operation efficiencies of ELISA.