A highly specific and sensitive indirect competitive monoclonal ELISA for the detection of brombuterol in animal feed, swine urine, pork and liver samples

ABSTRACT

Brombuterol, a new β-adrenergic agonist to enhance animal growth and increase feeding efficiency, is forbidden as an additive in animal feed for livestock production due to its adverse effects on consumers. In this study, a highly specific and sensitive monoclonal antibody was obtained and an indirect competitive monoclonal ELISA was developed to detect brombuterol, with an IC₅₀ value of 0.1 μg/kg (μg/L) and no cross-reactivity to other structurally related β-adrenergic agonists. The average recovery of brombuterol using the icELISA method ranged from 72.9% to 106.4% with the coefficient of variation lower than 18.9%, which was determined by analysing spiked animal feed, swine urine, pork and liver samples (n = 5). Finally, the icELISA gave results having a good correlation with those obtained by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. These results demonstrated that the developed icELISA for the detection of brombuterol is highly specific, sensitive, and reliable, indicating good potential for use in the area of food safety to improve consumer protection.

KEYWORDS:

• Brombuterol
• monoclonal antibody
• icELISA
• residues
• LC-MS/MS

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

All animal treatments were in strict accordance with Chinese laws and guidelines (protocol GKFCZ2001545) which were approved by the Animal Ethics Committee of China Agricultural University.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (2020YFF01014605).