Simultaneous determination of soy isoflavone glycosides, daidzin and genistin by monoclonal antibody-based highly sensitive indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay

Soy isoflavones are known as major bioactive compounds in soybean (Glycine max), which is an indispensable food. Despite their utility, the consumption of isoflavones has recently been limited because they exhibit oestrogenic and topoisomerase II inhibitory effects. To assess their intake limitation, accurate, sensitive, and effective quantitative analyses are necessary. In this study, we produced the monoclonal antibody (MAb) against daidzin (DZ) and applied it to an indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (icELISA) for the simultaneous determination of DZ and genistin (GEN), which are known as two major soy isoflavone glycosides in soy products. Using the DZ-MAb, we developed a sensitive icELISA method, where the limit of detection for DZ and GEN was 1.95 ng/ml. Several validation analyses revealed that the icELISA is sufficiently accurate and sensitive to be used to assess the overconsumption of soy isoflavones, which would lead to the safe dietary intake of soy products.