The Antibody Unit was established in 1986 to enable SASA to meet its responsibilities for the health of Scottish seed potatoes and for the quarantine testing of imported potato material. The primary focus of this work has been the development of ELISA assays incorporating monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) for the detection of many indigenous and non-indigenous potato viruses.
Antibodies have been developed for use in testing imported potato breeding material, microplants of existing varieties, leaf samples from field grown plants and tubers. Antibody reagents may also be used in research applications such as Electron Microscopy, membrane blotting and immunocapture techniques for PCR.
Most of the testing reagents we provide are based on MAbs produced in our tissue culture facility. Cell lines producing MAbs have all been developed at SASA and have undergone rigorous evaluation to ensure that the specificity that they exhibit is suitable for the testing systems required. In some cases defined mixtures of MAbs are used to ensure that the isolate range for a product covers the major geographical variants of the virus found in field situations.
New products are always under development.
Poster presentations relating to our products
Development of a Quality Assurance System for Plant Virus Testing Reagents
Plant Virus Testing Reagents
Development of a Monoclonal Antibody for the detection of Potato Mop-Top Virus
SASA's Freezing
Reagent sets for ELISA testing contain two products, a coating antibody which is a purified form of the MAb used to trap virus to the wells of an ELISA plate and a reporter reagent which is the antibody conjugated to the enzyme alkaline phosphatase.
The antibody/enzyme conjugates are made by us using a controlled reaction process which optimises the ratios of antibody and enzyme.
Conjugates produced in this way exhibit high signal to noise ratios in ELISA and are extremely consistant in performance.
Reagents produced by us are tested for specificity and consistency and can be supplied with batch QC data.
All of the production steps in the manufacture of our antibodies and conjugates are controlled within a Quality Management system compliant to BSi EN 9001:2015 FM 59966
Current BSi certificate