A Highly Sensitive Indirect Competitive Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ic-ELISA) by Antigen Coating for Diethyl Phthalate Analysis in Foods

As we have known, with the plasticizer disturbance in 2011 in Taiwan, long-term exposure to diethyl phthalate (DEP), one of the widely used phthalate esters, can lead to serious health problems. Therefore, a highly sensitive indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ic-ELISA) by antigen-coated plate format for DEP in foods was proposed in this paper. The polyclonal antibodies were raised against diethyl 4-aminophthalate (4-DEAP) conjugated to bovine serum albumin by the amino diazotization linkage method. Coating antigen was prepared with 4-DEAP conjugated to ovalbumin using the same procedure. Under the optimal experimental conditions, the ic-ELISA has a linear working range of 0.005–18.6 ng/mL (R2 = 0.9921), with a limit of detection of 0.0049 ng/mL. Low cross-reactivity (<9 %) to structurally related phthalates was observed. The method was successfully applied to the determination of DEP in fruit juice, milky tea, pure milk, and sour milk, without purification or preconcentration. Satisfactory recoveries were obtained ranging from 91.1 to 109.3 %. The results suggested that the developed ic-ELISA is a simple, sensitive, and specific method for the rapid monitoring of DEP in food samples.