Protein detection enhanced by 3DNA dendrimer signal amplification

DNA dendrimers, conjugated with both anti-biotin antibodies and up to 350 labeling entities, were designed and adapted to protein microarray and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to improve the limits of protein detection with no additional steps or equipment. Application of conjugated dendrimers to standard ELISA cytokine detection resulted in up to threefold improvement of the limits of detection with no significant increase in the inter- and intra-assay coefficient of variation (CV) compared to streptavidin horseradish peroxidase (SA-HRP) detection. The adaptation of conjugated dendrimers to protein microarray cytokine detection resulted in up to 10-fold improvement of the limits of detection, but assay conditions would have to be optimized to decrease the intra- and inter-assay %CVs.