Bring all reagents to room temperature before use. 3 Wash Buffer - If crystals have formed in the concentrate, warm to room temperature and mix gently until the crystals have completely dissolved. Dilute 30 mL of Wash Buffer Concentrate into deionized or distilled water to prepare 750 mL of Wash Buffer. Standard - Reconstitute the Standard with 1.0 ml of Sample Diluent. This reconstitution produces a stock solution of 10 ng/ml. Allow the standard to sit for about 10 minutes with gentle agitation prior to making serial dilutions (Making serial dilution in the wells directly is not permitted). The undiluted standard serves as the highest standard (10 ng/ml). The Sample Diluent serves as the zero standard (0 ng/ml). ng/mL 10 5 2.5 1.25 0.625 0.312 0.156 0 Detection Reagent A and B - Dilute to the working concentration using Assay Diluent A or B (1:100), respectively.

Allow all reagents to reach room temperature (Please do not dissolve the reagents at 37 directly.). All the reagents should be mixed thoroughly by gently swirling before pipetting. Avoid foaming. Keep appropriate numbers of strips for 1 experiment and remove extra strips from microtiter plate. Removed strips should be resealed and stored at 4 until the kits expiry date. Prepare all reagents, working standards and samples as directed in the previous sections. Please predict the concentration before assaying. If values for these are not within the range of the standard curve, users must determine the optimal sample dilutions for their particular experiments.
1. Add 100 of Standard, Blank, or Sample per well. Cover with the Plate sealer. Incubate for two hours at 37 .
2. Remove the liquid of each well, don ’ t wash.
3. Add 100 μ l of Detection Reagent A working solution to each well. Cover with the Plate sealer. Incubate for 1 hour at 37 . Detection Reagent A working solution may appear cloudy. Warm to room temperature and mix gently until solution appears uniform.
4. Aspirate each well and wash, repeating the process three times for a total of three washes. Wash by filling each well with Wash Buffer (approximately 400 μ l) using a squirt bottle, multi-channel pipette, manifold dispenser or autowasher. Complete removal of liquid at each step is essential to good performance. After the last wash, remove any remaining Wash Buffer by aspirating or decanting. Invert the plate and blot it against clean paper towels.
5. Add 100 μ l of Detection Reagent B working solution to each well. Cover with a new 4 Plate sealer. Incubate for one hour at 37 .
6. Repeat the aspiration/wash process for five times as conducted in step
4. 7. Add 90 μ l of Substrate Solution to each well. Cover with a new Plate sealer. Incubate for 15 - 30 minutes at 37 . Protect from light.
8. Add 50 μ l of Stop Solution to each well. If color change does not appear uniform, gently tap the plate to ensure thorough mixing.
9. Determine the optical density of each well at once, using a microplate reader set to 450 nm.
Important Note:1. Absorbance is a function of the incubation time. Therefore, prior to starting the assay it is recommended that all reagents should be freshly prepared prior to use and all required strip-wells are secured in the microtiter frame. This will ensure equal elapsed time for each pipetting step, without interruption.
2. Please carefully reconstitute Standards or working Detection Reagent A and B according to the instruction, and avoid foaming and mix gently until the crystals have completely dissolved. The reconstituted Standards can be used only once. This assay requires pipetting of small volumes. To minimize imprecision caused by pipetting, ensure that pipettors are calibrated. It is recommended to suck more than 10 μ l for once pipetting.
3. To ensure accurate results, proper adhesion of plate sealers during incubation steps is necessary. Do not allow wells to sit uncovered for extended periods between incubation steps. Once reagents have been added to the well strips, DO NOT let the strips DRY at any time during the assay.
4. For each step in the procedure, total dispensing time for addition of reagents to the assay plate should not exceed 10 minutes.
5. To avoid cross-contamination, change pipette tips between additions of each standard level, between sample additions, and between reagent additions. Also, use separate reservoirs for each reagent.
6. The wash procedure is critical. Insufficient washing will result in poor precision and falsely elevated absorbance readings.
7. Duplication of all standards and specimens, although not required, is recommended.
8. Substrate Solution is easily contaminated. Please protect it from light.

Average the duplicate readings for each standard, control, and samples and subtract the average zero standard optical density. Create a standard curve by reducing the data using computer software capable of generating a four parameter logistic (4-PL) curve-fit. As an alternative, construct a standard curve by plotting the mean absorbance for each standard on the x-axis against the concentration on the y-axis and draw a best fit curve through the points on the graph. The data may be linearized by plotting the log of the EPO concentrations versus the log of the O.D. and the best fit line can be determined by regression analysis. It is recommended to use some related software to do this calculation, such as curve expert 13.0. This procedure will produce an adequate but less precise fit of the data. If samples have been diluted, the concentration read from the standard curve must be multiplied by the dilution factor.