Images were taken using a CCD camera (LAS-3000; Fuji, Dusseldorf, Germany) and analysed with the software supplied with the camera. The antibody specificity was explored further in the assay described below, where the addition of possible competing molecules was tested

and the molecular size of the antigen was determined (see below). The human MASP-1 assay was based on competition from MASP-1 in serum with the interaction between anti-MASP-1 antibody and a fragment of MASP-1 (rCCP1-CCP2-SP) coated onto microtitre wells. The procedure described below leads to the measurement C646 chemical structure of europium as the label on the detecting reagents, and the procedure as such is termed a time-resolved immunofluorimetric assay (TRIFMA). Microtitre wells

were coated with 100 ng rCCP1-CCP2-SP in 100 µl coating buffer (15 mM Na2CO3, 35 mM NaHCO3, 1·5 mM NaN3, pH 9·6) overnight at 4°C. Residual binding sites were blocked by incubation Cyclopamine solubility dmso with HSA at 1 mg/ml TBS and washed with TBS/Tw. To test for MASP-1 the wells next received 100 µl of samples (e.g. normal human plasma or serum), which had been diluted in assay buffer (1 M NaCl, 10 mM Tris-HCl, 5 mM CaCl2, 15 mM NaN3, pH 7·4, 0·05% (v/v) Tween 20), mixed with rat anti-MASP-1 anti-serum and incubated for 15 min to ensure binding of anti-MASP-1 antibody to MASP-1 in the sample, before transfer to the microtitre wells. Routinely, serum or plasma was tested at a final concentration of 1·6% (60-fold dilution) and the anti-MASP-1 anti-serum was diluted 5000-fold. Following incubation overnight at 4°C, the wells were washed with TBS/Tw/Ca and incubated with 1 µg/ml biotinylated anti-rat-Ig in 100 µl of TBS/Tw/Ca for 2 h at room IMP dehydrogenase temperature. The

wells were washed and subsequently incubated with europium-labelled streptavidin (Perkin Elmer, Skovlunde, Denmark) diluted to 0·25 µg/ml in TBS/Tw containing 25 µM EDTA. After incubating for 1 h the wells were washed, and bound europium in the wells was measured by time-resolved fluorimetry (Victor3; Perkin Elmer) after the addition of enhancement solution (Perkin Elmer). The readings are given as photon counts per second. For each plate, a standard curve was made from a pool of plasma from healthy adult blood donors. The plasma was diluted 1/10 followed by twofold dilutions (seven times). In addition, for quality control each microtitre plate included three different citrate plasma samples diluted 60-fold. The standard plasma pool was found to have a concentration of 5·7 µg MASP-1 per ml by comparison with dilutions of rCCP1-CCP2-SP.