Effect of detergents on antibody-antigen interaction.

The effect of the different detergent mixtures on immunodiffusion and immunoprecipitation was studied. The anionic detergent sodium dodecyl sulfate at concentrations above 0.2% ($\text{w}\text{v}$) inhibits the reaction between antigen and antibody by more than 90%. Nonionic detergents at a concentration of 1% ($\text{w}\text{v}$) have little or no detectable effect. In contrast, when we used mixtures of various concentrations of ionic and nonionic detergents the inhibitory effect of the ionic detergent decreased.