Highly sensitive multianalyte immunochromatographic test strip for rapid chemiluminescent detection of ractopamine and salbutamol

• An immunochromatographic test strip was developed for detection of multiple β2-agonists.
• The whole assay process can be completed within 20 min.
• The proposed method shows much higher sensitivity due to the application of CL detection.
• It is a portable analytical tool suitable for field analysis and rapid screening.

A novel immunochromatographic assay (ICA) was proposed for rapid and multiple assay of β2-agonists, by utilizing ractopamine (RAC) and salbutamol (SAL) as the models. Owing to the introduction of chemiluminescent (CL) approach, the proposed protocol shows much higher sensitivity. In this work, the described ICA was based on a competitive format, and horseradish peroxidase-tagged antibodies were used as highly sensitive CL probes. Quantitative analysis of β2-agonists was achieved by recording the CL signals of the probes captured on the two test zones of the nitrocellulose membrane. Under the optimum conditions, RAC and SAL could be detected within the linear ranges of 0.50–40 and 0.10–50 ng mL−1, with the detection limits of 0.20 and 0.040 ng mL−1 (S/N = 3), respectively. The whole process for multianalyte immunoassay of RAC and SAL can be completed within 20 min. Furthermore, the test strip was validated with spiked swine urine samples and the results showed that this method was reliable in measuring β2-agonists in swine urine. This CL-based multianalyte test strip shows a series of advantages such as high sensitivity, ideal selectivity, simple manipulation, high assay efficiency and low cost. Thus, it opens up new pathway for rapid screening and field analysis, and shows a promising prospect in food safety.

A multianalyte immunochromatographic test strip was developed for the rapid detection of two β2-agonists. Due to the application of chemiluminescent detection, this quantitative method shows much higher sensitivity.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide