Extensive measurements have been taken of absorption and fluorescence effects with fiber core type sensor elements, including uncoated elements, and elements coated with crosslinker compounds without and with antigen peptide attachment. Only a small amount of data has been obtained to date, however, on sensor elements exposed to antibody containing sera samples. With such elements relatively large increases in absorption attributable to tryptophan have been observed. At this point, however, attributing this to increases in tryptophans due to antigen-antibody binding has not been established.