Definition of Immunodiffusion
1. [n -S]
Medical Definition of Immunodiffusion
1.
The classical technique used to detect the presence of antibodies and determine their specificity by visualisation of precipitin lines. A technique for analysing antigen and antibody mixtures by watching them as they diffuse toward each other within a support medium (usually a gel).
The precipitin lines (precipitated antigen-antibody complexes) form where the binding concentrations of antigen and antibody are equivalent. Patient serum diffuses from one well through the gel and reacts with a known specific antigen (or antibody) which diffuses through the gel from a second well.
Immunodiffusion is strictly qualitative, although the density of the precipitin line and the distance of the line from the sample well may give some indication of the antibody concentration.
Synonym: double diffusion, Ouchterlony technique.
(01 Dec 1998)
Lexicographical Neighbors of Immunodiffusion
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