Analyte

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An analyte is the substance or chemical constituent that is undergoing analysis. It is the substance being measured in an analytical procedure. An example of an analytical procedure is a titration.

For instance, in an immunoassay, the analyte may be the ligand or the binder, while in blood glucose testing, the analyte is glucose.

In medicine, "Analyte" often refers to the type of test being run on a patient. This is because the test is usually measuring a chemical constituent in your body.

An analyte (in clinical chemistry preferentially referred to as component)itself cannot be measured but a measurable property of the analyte can. Thus one cannot measure a table (analyte-component) but the height, width etc. of a table. Likewise, one cannot measure glucose but for instance glucose concentration. In this example "glucose" is the component and "concentration" is the kind-of-property. In laboratory and layman jargon the "property" is often left out provided the omission does not lead to an ambiguity of what property is measured.