Index >> Serology >> Precipitation

Precipitation - This reaction involves thousands of antigen and antibody molecules cross linked at multiple. sites to form a structure called a lattice. These become so large that precipitate form can be easily seen. Precipitation tests are performed either in fluid-fluid precipitation, or gel-gel precipitation. In the former, the antibody and antigen solutions are layered over each other in a thin tube. In the latter, the diffusion of antigen and antibody takes place through a semisolid gel as agarose. There are used the Oudin tube technique or Ouchterlony plate technique. In a procedure, called immunoelectrophoresis, the, two techniques of electrophoresis and diffusion are combined for detection of antigens