Purification of labelled antibodies by hydrophobic interaction chromatography

In order to improve the sensitivity of immunometric assays, a chromatographic technique was developed that virtually eliminates components causing non-specific background. Labelled antibodies were applied to a phenyl-Sepharose column in physiological buffer. When labelled anitbodies were purified by this technique, the non-specific background of various time-resolved immunofluorometric assays was reduced 3- to 10-fold and was very close to the instrument background. The assay sensitivity was simultaneously increased by a factor of 2 to 16. This purification method might be used to improve the results of immunometric assays in general.