We will prepare dyed latex particles that yield the optimal combinations of luminescence signal and other properties. These will include fluorescent particles that have enhanced Stokes shifts that are useful for simultaneous multi-color assays. The luminescence of the particles will usually be fluorescence; however, we also propose to develop new particles that are phosphorescent, chemiluminescent or that contain photoreactive dyes. Furthermore, we will develop fluorescent calibration standards for microscopy, flow cytometry and other biochemical instrumentation that can be used to establish the validity and reliability of a wide variety of clinical and laboratory tests. Our principal research efforts will apply the unique reagents to improve the detection of biomolecules such as peptides, proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, allergens and drugs. In particular, we will optimize the use of fluorescent and [phosphorescent particles as alternatives to direct dyes or to chromogenic, fluorogenic or chemiluminescent substrates in protein, glycoprotein and nucleic acid blots and in a variety of other bioassays that are conducted in solution or on solid or semi-solid substrates. We will continue our successful development of these reagents for in cell detection of antigens, receptors and nucleic acids. In particular, we intend to demonstrate the superiority of the particles to alternative reagents for detection of low abundance targets and to utilize the microparticles that we have prepared that have an enhanced Stokes shift to develop simultaneous multi-color imaging or flow cytometric assays.
