title: Development of a radioimmunoassay for the determination of N-desmethylzopiclone in urine.
abstract: The development of a specific and sensitive radioimmunoassay for the detection of N-desmethylzopiclone in urine samples is described. The assay will be used to pre-screen for N-desmethylzopiclone as an indication of zopiclone intake in a forensic and emergency context. N-Hemisuccinyldesmethylzopiclone has been prepared as a hapten. The immunization of rabbits with the hapten-bovine serum albumin conjugate resulted in the production of highly specific antibodies, showing no significant cross-reactivities with existing drugs. The four-parameter logistic model was used to process the calibration data into a fitting curve (r2 = 0.9979). Intra- and inter-assay relative standard deviations were < 9.1 and < 19.1%, respectively. The minimum detectable dose of the immunoassay was calculated to be 0.1 ng ml-1 (Pooled-variance t-distribution, p = 0.01, degrees of freedom = 14).
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Toxicology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mannaert
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Daenens
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D053961:Azabicyclo Compounds; D004630:Emergencies; D005554:Forensic Medicine; D006801:Humans; D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives / Q000378:metabolism / Q000506:poisoning / Q000652:urine*; D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D010879:Piperazines / Q000378:metabolism / Q000506:poisoning / Q000652:urine*; D011817:Rabbits / Q000276:immunology; D011863:Radioimmunoassay / Q000379:methods; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D053961:Azabicyclo Compounds; D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives; D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D010879:Piperazines; C515050:zopiclone; C053229:N-desmethylzopiclone