Patent ID: 7514226

Claim:
A method for identifying an antibody pair that selectively interacts with a target C-reactive protein in a test sample comprising: (a) screening a series of antibody preparations that may react with the target C-reactive protein to identify at least two antibody preparations with high affinity for the target C-reactive protein, thereby generating at least one first high affinity antibody preparation and at least one second high affinity antibody preparation; (b) immobilizing the first high affinity antibody preparation on a substrate, to generate a first immobilized high antibody preparation; (c) measuring the cross-reactivity of the first immobilized high affinity antibody preparation with the second high affinity antibody preparation to obtain an antibody-antibody cross-reactivity value (C); (d) measuring the affinity of the first immobilized high affinity antibody preparation and the second high affinity antibody preparation for the target C-reactive protein to obtain a ternary affinity value (A) by observing formation of a ternary sandwich complex formed between the first immobilized high affinity antibody preparation, the target C-reactive protein, and the second high affinity antibody preparation; (e) determining the percent specific activity for formation of the ternary sandwich complex using the following formula: [100×( A−C )]/ A =% specific activity; wherein the first and the second high affinity antibody preparations are selected for an antibody pair that selectively interacts with the target C-reactive protein when the percent specific activity of the ternary sandwich complex is greater than 40%.