Development of an indirect competitive ELISA based on polyclonal antibody for the detection of diethylstilbestrol in water samples

An indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (icELISA) based on polyclonal antibody for the estrogen diethylstilbestrol (DES) was developed. With this aim, two different haptens mono-O-3-carboxypropyldiethylstilbestrol (DES-CP) and mono-O-carboxymethyldiethylstilbestrol (DES-CM) with carboxylic group that preserve the molecular structure character of diethylstilbestrol were synthesized. The haptens were conjugated with the carrier proteins bovine serum albumin (BSA) by mixed-anhydride method for immunogen and conjugated with ovalbumin (OVA) by active ester method for coating antigen. Polyclonal antibodies for diethylstilbestrol were raised by immunizing mice with immune antigen DES-CP-BSA. Under optimized system, the lowest limit of detection (LLD) of diethylstilbestrol was 0.01 ng/mL, and IC50= 1.02 ng/mL. Its analogs were tested and no obvious cross-reactivity was found to anti-diethylstilbestrol antibody. DES-fortified water samples were determined by simple dilution to diminish the matrix effect. The comparison between the amount of DES estimated by ELISA and the amount added indicates good agreement for all water samples tested, with mean recovery values ranging from 86% to 120.2%.