Methodologies to anchor dendrimeric nanoconjugates to solid phase: toward an efficient in vitro detection of allergy to β-lactam antibiotics.

UNLABELLED: β-lactam antibiotics are the most common cause of adverse drug reactions, and in vitro immunoassays are often employed to diagnose this allergy. Cellulose solid supports displaying hapten-carrier conjugates are traditionally used for quantifying specific IgE antibodies to determine whether a patient is allergic to the hapten. Our approach makes use of polyamidoamine dendrimers as carriers, and differs from traditional solid-phase activation methods by using two different haloalkanoyl halides as reagents instead of cyanogen bromide. Evaluation of the functionalization in the three different surfaces with benzylpenicilloyl-dendrimer conjugates showed a higher density of conjugates when using haloalkanoyl halides. The resulting surfaces were evaluated in vitro by radioimmunoassay using sera from patients allergic to penicillins. Selective and specific IgE recognition was observed in the different activated disks, though those activated with haloalkanoyl halides presented better sensitivity.

FROM THE CLINICAL EDITOR: A novel and sensitive method of dendrimeric nanoconjugate-based in vitro detection of allergy to β-lactam antibiotics is presented in this basic science paper.