title: A highly sensitive monoclonal antibody based biosensor for quantifying 3-5 ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in aqueous environmental samples.
abstract: Immunoassays based on monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are highly sensitive for the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and can be employed to determine concentrations in near real-time. A sensitive generic mAb against PAHs, named as 2G8, was developed by a three-step screening procedure. It exhibited nearly uniformly high sensitivity against 3-ring to 5-ring unsubstituted PAHs and their common environmental methylated PAHs, with IC50values between 1.68-31 μg/L (ppb). 2G8 has been successfully applied on the KinExA Inline Biosensor system for quantifying 3-5 ring PAHs in aqueous environmental samples. PAHs were detected at a concentration as low as 0.2 μg/L. Furthermore, the analyses only required 10 min for each sample. To evaluate the accuracy of the 2G8-based biosensor, the total PAH concentrations in a series of environmental samples analyzed by biosensor and GC-MS were compared. In most cases, the results yielded a good correlation between methods. This indicates that generic antibody 2G8 based biosensor possesses significant promise for a low cost, rapid method for PAH determination in aqueous samples.
authors.affiliation: Department of Aquatic Health Sciences, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary, Gloucester Point, VA 23062.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Aquatic Health Sciences, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary, Gloucester Point, VA 23062.
authors.forename: Stephen L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Kaattari
authors.affiliation: Department of Aquatic Health Sciences, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary, Gloucester Point, VA 23062.
authors.forename: Mary A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Vogelbein
authors.affiliation: Department of Aquatic Health Sciences, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary, Gloucester Point, VA 23062.
authors.forename: George G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Vadas
authors.affiliation: Department of Aquatic Health Sciences, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary, Gloucester Point, VA 23062.
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Unger
keywords: Biosensor; Monoclonal antibody; PAH; Pore water; Pyrene