The Use of Antigen Microarrays in Antibody Profiling

Technological advances in the field of microarray production and analysis lead to the development of protein microarrays. Of these, antigen microarrays are one particular format that allows the study of antigen–antibody interactions in a miniaturized and highly multiplexed fashion. Here, we describe the parallel detection of antibodies with different specificities in human serum, a procedure also called antibody profiling. Autoantigens printed on microarray slides are reacted with test sera and the bound antibodies are identified by fluorescently labeled secondary reagents. Reactivity patterns generated this way characterize individuals and can help design novel diagnostic tools.