Hello, Immcarle28, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:32, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My comments are in all caps! Just some thoughts to further clarify this topic. Seems good overall though.

The hook effect or the prozone effect is a type of interference which plagues certain immunoassays and nephelometric assays, resulting in false negatives or inaccurately low results. Other common forms of interference include antibody interference, cross-reactivity and signal interference. (WHEN GIVING BACKGROUND IS MENTIONING OTHER METHODS OF INTERFERENCE THE MOST PERTINENT THING?) The phenomenon is caused by very high concentrations of a particular analyte (antigen?) or antibody and is most prevalent in one-step (sandwich) immunoassays.[2] Mechanism[edit] In an agglutination test, a person's serum (which contains antibodies) is added to a test tube, which contains a particular antigen. If the antibodies agglutinate with the antigen to form immune complexes, then the test is interpreted as positive. However, if too many antibodies are present that can bind to the antigen, then the antigenic sites are coated by antibodies, and few or no antibodies directed toward the pathogen are able to bind more than one antigenic particle.[3] Since the antibodies do not bridge between antigens, no agglutination occurs (WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?). Because no agglutination occurs, the test is interpreted as negative. In this case, the result is a false negative. The zone (WHY IS THIS A “ZONE”?) of relatively high antibody concentrations within which no reaction occurs is called the prozone [4] or the prezone.[citation needed] The effect can also occur because of antigen excess. If both the capture and detection antibodies become saturated by the high analyte(ANTIGEN?) concentration, then no sandwich can be formed by the stacking of the capturing antibody, the antigen and the detection antibody. (THIS SENTENCE IS CONFUSING.) In this case free antigen is in competition with captured antigen for detection antibody binding.[5] (MAKE CLEAR HOW SANDWHICH WORKS? I HAD TO READ THIS A FEW TIMES TO UNDERSTAND IT. MAYBE INCLUDE A PICTURE.) Sequential addition of antigen and antibody, paired with stringent washing can prevent the effect, as can increasing the relative concentration of antibody to antigen.(MAYBE: THIS EFFECT CAN BE PREVENTED BY...) [1] Examples include high levels of syphilis antibodies in HIV patients or high levels of cryptococcal antigen leading to false negative tests in undiluted samples.[6][7] This phenomenon is also seen in serological tests for Brucellosis. The serological test is mainly seen in the precipitation reaction. The antibody that fails to react is known as the blocking antibody and prevents the precipitating antibody from binding to the antigens. Thus the proper precipitation reaction does not take place. (ONCE AGAIN, THIS IS CONFUSING, IN TERMS OF VISUALIZING.) However, when the serum is diluted, the blocking antibody is as well and its concentration decreases enough for the proper precipitation reaction to occur.[8][1] Immcarle29 (talk) 20:35, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(WHEN GIVING BACKGROUND IS MENTIONING OTHER METHODS OF INTERFERENCE THE MOST PERTINENT THING?)

• • • yes

(WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?)

• • • it is defined a few sentences earlier.

WHY IS THIS A “ZONE”

• fixed this

ANTIGEN

• • • yes, but analyte works here, because it is specifically something we are measuring.

THIS SENTENCE IS CONFUSING.)

• fixed this

(MAKE CLEAR HOW SANDWHICH WORKS? I HAD TO READ THIS A FEW TIMES TO UNDERSTAND IT. MAYBE INCLUDE A PICTURE.)

• • • while i find the explanation much clearer now, i will include a picture in my final draft.

MAYBE: THIS EFFECT CAN BE PREVENTED BY...)

• • • didnt say this exactly, but changed to make clearer.

(ONCE AGAIN, THIS IS CONFUSING, IN TERMS OF VISUALIZING.)

• • • I will make a side by side photo comparing the last two types for the final draft. (it takes a while to make a digital drawing...)

Immcarle28 (talk) 07:20, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]