Monoclonal antibody-based broad-specificity immunoassay for monitoring organophosphorus pesticides in environmental water samples

J Environ Monit. 2011 Nov;13(11):3040-8. doi: 10.1039/c1em10331h. Epub 2011 Sep 14.

Abstract

The development of easy-to-use and rapid-monitoring immunoassay methods for organic environmental pollutants in a class-selective manner is a topic of considerable environmental interest. In this work, a heterologous competitive indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ciELISA) based on a monoclonal antibody (MAb) with broad-specificity for organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) was applied to the detection of O,O-diethyl and O,O-dimethyl OPs in water samples. The ciELISA conditions were carefully optimized to obtain a three to five-fold improvement of sensitivity for most OPs, and thirteen OPs were determined at concentrations ranging from 0.017 to 30 ng mL(-1). The determination of spiked environmental water samples showed average recoveries from 81.5% to 115.1%, with the coefficient of variation (CV) ranging from 6.1% to 20.9%, which showed satisfactory reproducibility of the developed ciELISA. To overcome the negative aspect of broad-specificity immunoassays not providing qualitative and quantitative analysis of individual OPs in blind samples, we used "percent inhibition rate" to make the developed ciELISA a semi-quantitative method, which allows the monitoring of positive samples from hundreds of negative samples. The determination of OPs in blind water samples by the developed ELISA with confirmation by HPLC-MS/MS analysis demonstrated that the assay is ideally suited as a screening method for OP residues prior to chromatographic analysis.

Publication types

  • Evaluation Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antibodies, Monoclonal*
  • Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid
  • Environmental Monitoring / methods*
  • Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / methods*
  • Limit of Detection
  • Organophosphorus Compounds / analysis*
  • Pesticides / analysis*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry
  • Water Pollutants, Chemical / analysis*

Substances

  • Antibodies, Monoclonal
  • Organophosphorus Compounds
  • Pesticides
  • Water Pollutants, Chemical