Detection and quantitation of insulin-like growth factor-1 in velvet antler by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay

An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect the content of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in velvet antler water extract. The ELISA was validated with respect to parallelism, recovery, intra-assay variation, and inter-assay variation. The practical working range of detection was estimated to be 0.8 to 200 ng/mL, and the recovery was 96.7% or more. The effect of sample matrix was assessed by serial dilution. The result indicated that this ELISA method is a reliable, safe, and cost-effective tool for determination of IGF-1 content in velvet antler and serum.