title: Improved strategy for biosensor-based monitoring of water bodies with diverse organic carbon levels.
abstract: To protect water resources and to control the water quality it is necessary to develop fast, sensitive, cost-effective, and easy-to-use analytical systems, which are able to measure a variety of contaminants in water. Monitoring water bodies with various matrices can be very difficult. The diverse organic carbon level in water samples (e.g. river water or seawater) causes problems at common analysis and in particular at immunological methods. Here, we demonstrate a new method to overcome the partly occurring matrix problems at quasi-continuous real-world biosensor monitoring. Therefore, we developed an easy matrix referencing method for our fully automated immunoassays that could be adapted to other applications depending on a similar test-format. The method was developed using a synthetic organic carbon standard, and validated using a diluted turf extract. Results for the ultra-sensitive immunoassay for estrone quantification are shown as example. The developed method was verified using immunoassays for testosterone, progesterone, ethinylestradiol, estradiol, and estriol.
authors.affiliation: Eberhard-Karls-University of Tuebingen, Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, IPTC, Auf der Morgenstelle 8, Germany. jens.tschmelak@ipc.uni-tuebingen.de
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tschmelak
authors.forename: Guenther
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Proll
authors.forename: Guenter
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gauglitz
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D002244:Carbon / Q000032:analysis*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D007118:Immunoassay / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D009930:Organic Chemicals / Q000032:analysis*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014873:Water Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D009930:Organic Chemicals; D014873:Water Pollutants; D002244:Carbon