The test reagents (TR) are composed of a mixture of rabbit antisera and monoclonal antibodies (mAb), or solely of monoclonal antibodies. Test reagents which only contain monoclonal antibodies carry SIFIN's product name Enteroclon.

The mAbs are obtained by immunising mice and fusion of the spleen cells with a mouse myeloma cell line. Compared with the polyclonal test sera (TS), Enteroclons represent a new generation of serological diagnostic materials, displaying the following characteristics:

- Uniformity: the antibodies they contain are uniform with respect to structure, stability, antigen binding site and avidity

- Standardisability: their effectiveness can be standardised by reproducible adjustment of the antibody concentration

- Free from unwanted accompanying antibodies

- Cross-reactions due to antigen relatedness have been avoided to the greatest possible extent by selection and characterization of the cell clones

- Independence from immune serum donors

- Isolation of antibody specificity that cannot be produced polyclonally (for example, O13, H1, He, Hg, Hn)

The test sera (TS) are produced by immunizing rabbits with killed bacteria of selected serovars. Where necessary, unwanted accompanying antibodies are removed by absorption.

Applications: The test reagents and test sera are intended for use in microbiological diagnostics laboratories, for the serological detection and serotyping of pathogenic Enterobacteriaceae from test material of human and other origin.

They are designed for slide agglutination. After cultivating them on selective – or selective indicator – culture media, suspicious colonies are investigated using biochemical and serological methods. When performing serotyping tests, it should be kept in mind that bacteria from media with added inhibitors may display weaker reactions. Group-specific Enteroclons enable the serological O group to be determined.The serotype can then be determined using the monospecific Enteroclons or test sera.