Effects of Temperature and Relative Humidity on the Stability of Paper-Immobilized Antibodies

The stability of a paper-immobilized antibody was investigated over a range of temperatures (40-140 degrees C) and relative humidities (RH, 30-90%) using both unmodified filter paper and the same paper impregnated with polyamide-epichlorohydrin (PAE) as supports. Antibody stability decreased with increasing temperature, as expected, but also decreased with increasing RH. At 40 degrees C, the half-life was more than 10 days, with little dependence on RH. However, at 80 degrees C, the half-life varied from similar to 3 days at low RH to less than half an hour at 90% RH, demonstrating that hydration of the antibody promotes unfolding. Antibody stability was not influenced by the PAE paper surface treatment. This work shows that antibodies are good candidates for development of bioactive paper as they have sufficient stability at high temperature to withstand printing and other roll-to-roll processing steps, and sufficient low temperature stability to allow long-term storage of bioactive paper materials.