title: Competitive immunoassay for staphylococcal enterotoxin A using capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence detection.
abstract: Staphylococcal enterotoxins are a family of toxic proteins secreted by S. aureus. Using capillary electrophoresis (CE) linked with laser-induced fluorescence, a highly sensitive and selective assay using antibody-antigen recognition was developed for the determination of Staphylococcal enterotoxin A. Staphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA) was chemically labeled with fluorescein and the product was used as a fluorescent tracer. A competitive assay was developed to detect SEA at concentrations between 0.3 nM and 6.5 nM with standard deviations of less than 5%. The detection limit was found to be 3 amol with the potential improvement by further optimization of the assay. No cross-reactivity between staphylococcal enterotoxin B and the SEA antibody was found at the concentrations used for the CE immunoassay.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Lam
authors.forename: Q H
authors.initials: QH
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Boulet
authors.forename: X C
authors.initials: XC
authors.lastname: Le
mesh_terms: D019075:Electrophoresis, Capillary / Q000379:methods*; D004768:Enterotoxins / Q000032:analysis*; D005453:Fluorescence; D007118:Immunoassay / Q000379:methods*; D007834:Lasers; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D004768:Enterotoxins; C026066:enterotoxin A, Staphylococcal