An electrochemical immunosensor based on agarose hydrogel films for rapid determination of ractopamine

A novel label-free electrochemical immunosensor for rapid determination of ractopamine was constructed by incorporating ractopamine–bovine thyroglobulin antigen in agarose hydrogel films modified on a glassy carbon electrode. Cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry were employed to investigate the electrochemical character of the immunosensor during different modified stages using a redox probe system of K3Fe(CN)6/K4Fe(CN)6. In the presence of polyclonal antibody against ractopamine, K3[Fe(CN)6] electron transfer is inhibited, presumably due to that antibody in solution could adsorb on the electrode surface modified antigen. A competitive immunoreaction system was applied to determinate the free ractopamine in phosphate buffer solution. The selected polyclonal antibody showed very high sensitivity and specificity for ractopamine, and was used for the detection and quantitative determination of trace amounts of ractopamine in spiked animal feeds.