An Immunosensor for the Detection of Stanozolol in Bovine Urine

Abstract

There has been much concern in the EU in recent years over the use of steroid hormones as growth promoters. Stanozolol is a synthetic hormone which has been misused to promote weight gain in food producing animals. In the presented work, an electrochemical immunosensor for the detection of stanozolol in bovine urine has been described. The assay format used was a direct, immobilized antibody system. Initially all assays were developed by ELISA and were subsequently transferred to screen printed carbon electrodes, where competitive assays were developed in both buffer and urine. As expected, the cross‐reactivity of the antibody to the majority of steroids analyzed was negligible. The precision study showed satisfactory intra and inter assay variance. The electrodes showed good stability for three days before activity dropped below an acceptable level.

Keywords:

• Stanozolol
• immunosensor
• bovine urine
• screen printed electrodes

The authors would like to thank Dr Mark Crowe, School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine, University College Dublin for all urine samples. The presented work was financed by the European Union Quality of Life & Management of Living Resources Programme (RaDAR project QLK1‐2000‐01670).