Recommended Immunological Assays to Screen for Ricin-Containing Samples

Toxins

Stéphanie Simon¹  Sylvia Worbs²  Marc-André Avondet³  Dobryan M. Tracz⁴  Julie Dano¹  Lisa Schmidt⁴  Hervé Volland¹  Brigitte G. Dorner²  Cindi R. Corbett⁴ 

[1] CEA Saclay, Institute of Biology and Technologies of Saclay, Laboratory for Immunoanalytical Researches, Gif-sur-Yvette 91191 cedex, France;Biological Toxins, Centre for Biological Threats and Special Pathogens, Robert Koch Institute, 13353 Berlin, Germany;Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport—SPIEZ Laboratory, Spiez 3700, Switzerland;Bacteriology & Enteric Diseases Division, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, MB R3E 3R2, Canada;

关键词: ricin;    immunological detection;    enzyme linked immunosorbent assay;    lateral flow assay;    proficiency test;   

DOI  :  10.3390/toxins7124858

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Ricin, a toxin from the plant Ricinus communis, is one of the most toxic biological agents known. Due to its availability, toxicity, ease of production and absence of curative treatments, ricin has been classified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as category B biological weapon and it is scheduled as a List 1 compound in the Chemical Weapons Convention. An international proficiency test (PT) was conducted to evaluate detection and quantification capabilities of 17 expert laboratories. In this exercise one goal was to analyse the laboratories’ capacity to detect and differentiate ricin and the less toxic, but highly homologuous protein R. communis agglutinin (RCA120). Six analytical strategies are presented in this paper based on immunological assays (four immunoenzymatic assays and two immunochromatographic tests). Using these immunological methods “dangerous” samples containing ricin and/or RCA120 were successfully identified. Based on different antibodies used the detection and quantification of ricin and RCA120 was successful. The ricin PT highlighted the performance of different immunological approaches that are exemplarily recommended for highly sensitive and precise quantification of ricin.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.