Fig. 19.

Principles of the Luminex Technology. (A) Color-coding enables each microsphere to be read individually and to be multiplexed with other microsphere sets. The lasers excite fluorescent dyes – red laser for bead classification and green laser for assay result. (B) Microspheres are easily coated with reagent that is specific to an analyte being tested (e.g., cytokine). As the microspheres are mixed with a biological sample, analytes are captured based on specific anti-body/protein recognition. (C) A fluorescent reporter tag conveys the quantitative results of each separate test.