PRODUCTION OF MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES FOR CARBARYL FROM A HAPTEN PRESERVING THE CARBAMATE GROUP

Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) for the carbamate insecticide carbaryl (1-naphthyl N-methylcarbamate) were obtained by immunizing mice with 6-[[(1-naphthyloxy)carbonyl]amino]hexanoic acid (3, CNH) conjugated to bovine serum albumin (BSA). The hapten synthesis strategy was designed to preserve the carbamate group characteristic of N-methylcarbamate pesticides. The most promising MAb (LIB/CNH-3.6) was characterized by using an indirect homologous antigen-coated ELISA. With this assay format, LIB/CNH-3.6 showed a high affinity for carbaryl (I-50 = 3 6 nM) and minimum cross-reactivities for several N-methylcarbamates and 1-naphthol, the main carbaryl metabolite. Both affinity and specificity achieved by LIB/CNH-3.6 meant a great improvement with respect to the features displayed by the serum of the mouse from which the MAb was derived. This MAb appears to be a very promising immunoreagent for the future development of a specific and sensitive quantitative ELISA for carbaryl, and the applied hapten synthesis strategy is proposed as a general procedure to obtain immunogenic conjugates for other N-methylcarbamate pesticides.