Sensitive and rapid detection of cholera toxin subunit B using magnetic frequency mixing detection

PLoS One. 2019 Jul 5;14(7):e0219356. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219356. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Cholera is a life-threatening disease caused by the cholera toxin (CT) as produced by some Vibrio cholerae serogroups. In this research we present a method which directly detects the toxin's B subunit (CTB) in drinking water. For this purpose we performed a magnetic sandwich immunoassay inside a 3D immunofiltration column. We used two different commercially available antibodies to capture CTB and for binding to superparamagnetic beads. ELISA experiments were performed to select the antibody combination. The beads act as labels for the magnetic frequency mixing detection technique. We show that the limit of detection depends on the type of magnetic beads. A nonlinear Hill curve was fitted to the calibration measurements by means of a custom-written python software. We achieved a sensitive and rapid detection of CTB within a broad concentration range from 0.2 ng/ml to more than 700 ng/ml.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antibodies, Bacterial / immunology
  • Cholera Toxin / chemistry*
  • Cholera Toxin / immunology
  • Cholera Toxin / metabolism*
  • Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay
  • Humans
  • Immunoassay / methods*
  • Immunoassay / standards
  • Protein Subunits / immunology
  • Protein Subunits / metabolism*
  • Software

Substances

  • Antibodies, Bacterial
  • Protein Subunits
  • Cholera Toxin

Grants and funding

Part of this research was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) [AquaNANO project, grant numbers 13N13711 and 13N13712]. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.