Wikipedia
The FluoroSpot assay is a modification of the ELISPOT assay. ELISPOT, which has become one of the most commonly used immunoassays in human clinical trials of vaccines, enumerates cells secreting a specific analyte. The method detects the analyte in the wells of a microtiter plate by the use of an enzyme-labeled antibody and a precipitating enzyme substrate for color development. As the secreted analyte is captured on the PVDF membrane in the bottom of the wells, each secreting cell will create a visible spot on the well membrane. The number of spots in relation to the number of added cells in the well will give the frequency of secreting cells. The use of substrate in the assay usually limits the method to analysis of a single analyte at a time. The FluoroSpot technique overcomes this limitation by using fluorophores instead of enzymes and takes the method closer to multiplex analysis. By assigning a certain fluorophore to the detection of a certain analyte, cells secreting several analytes will create multicolored spots on the well membrane. When analyzed by an automated FluoroSpot plate reader with selective filters, fluorophore/analyte-specific images of a well can be captured. A digital overlay of the spot-containing images enables detection of single cells secreting several analytes simultaneously. The method can be applied to essentially any type of cells where one wants to investigate secretion of multiple analytes from single cells in a population or where one simply wants to benefit from the fact that several analytes can be assessed simultaneously in the same well, for example when there is a limited supply of cells.
The use of fluorophores instead of enzymes for the detection also makes the method more comparable to flow cytometry. Importantly, the methods differ in that flow cytometry detects intracellularly accumulated analytes and simultaneously offers the opportunity to define cell surface markers. FluoroSpot, on the other hand, detects actively secreting cells and is, like ELISpot, more adaptable to screening of large number of samples, e.g. in vaccination trials. The high sensitivity of the method (detection limit <1 cell per 100 000) makes it especially attractive in situations where the producing cells represent only a small fraction of a cell population like in studies of antigen-specific polyfunctional T cells, identification of functionally defined T-cell subtypes such as Th1, Th2, Th17 or Th22, or in studies of antigen-specific B cells and Epstein-Barr specific clinical secreting different isotypes or subclasses.
FluoroSpot has been used to analyze T cell responses in studies of TB, HIV and in influenza vaccine trial monitoring. The assay has also been used to study responses by in vivo activated human and mouse B cells and to delineate monocyte subpopulations by their cytokine secreting profile.