Comparison of in-house-developed ELISA with HPLC techniques for the analysis of atrazine residues

Abstract

In-house developed ELISA was standardized to monitor atrazine residues in different environmental samples. The standard curve was linear, indicating an increase in log concentration with decrease in absorbance (%B/B₀ = 1.075–0.042 Log C; r = −0.966). The middle of the test was at 75 ng/L and the lowest detection limit at 4 ng/L. ELISA significantly correlated with the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) (r = 0.990). Internal validation showed good accuracy and precision. Maximum atrazine residues were present in Jehlum River water/sediments and maize/sugarcane plant roots. Most of the food samples were found to be contaminated. ELISA required less clean-up steps than HPLC, but showed matrix effect in soil/colored extracts.

Keywords:

• Comparison
• ELISA
• HPLC
• atrazine residues
• environmental samples
• food products

Acknowledgments

We thank Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), Islamabad, Pakistan and International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria (IAEA) for the grant and research. We acknowledge NOVARTIS (Basel) for providing the relevant literature, atrazine standard, and its metabolites. We are grateful to Professor Dr. Mohammad Zafar Iqbal, Director, Institute of Chemistry, Punjab University Lahore, Professor Dr. Bertold Hock and Dr. Karl Kramer, Centre of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Germany for guidance, expert opinion, technical help and review of the manuscript.

Notes

∗All the data are means of values from three triplicates.