Stereolithography-Based 3D Printed "Pillar Plates" that Minimizes Fluid Transfers During Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assays.

Abstract

Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is one of the most popular and indispensable tools in molecular biology. Despite numerous advances in ELISA methods that markedly improve the sensitivity and throughput of detection, a hallmark of all ELISA continues to be repeated pipetting of fluids that is not only cumbersome but can easily introduce errors or contaminations. Robotics, despite obvious advantages, remains expensive. Here, we designed and produced cheap "pillar plates" using stereolithography-based 3D printing that can be readily inserted into conventional 96- and 384- well plates and serve as the substrate for ELISA. We demonstrate that ELISA using these "pillar plates" affords comparable specificity and sensitivity of detection of serum antibodies to traditional sandwich ELISA, while markedly reducing the time and efforts associated with fluid transfer. These results underscore "pillar plates" as an attractive platform for rapid yet robotics-free ELISA.