Title: lateral flow test
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - lateral flow test
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.09679
Status: current

Definition
Migration of the sample zone driven by capillary forces in a porous carrier strip.

Notes
1) During migration the dissolved tracer becomes distributed between capture and control zones with immobilised antibodies.
2) The amount of the label compound in both zones depends on the concentration of the compound in the studied sample.

Example
The most common test of this type is the one for pregnancy.

Source
- PAC, 2018, 90, 1121. 'Terminology of bioanalytical methods (IUPAC Recommendations 2018)' on page 1141 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2016-1120)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09679/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09679/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09679/xml

Citation: Citation: 'lateral flow test' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.09679
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Accessed: 2026-08-04T19:49:05+00:00