Highly sensitive near-simultaneous assay of multiple “lean meat agent” residues in swine urine using a disposable electrochemiluminescent immunosensors array

Nowadays, β2-agonists are abused illegally as “lean meat agents” for food-producing animals, and cause increasing food-safety accidents in some countries. Due to their hazard to the human health, “lean meat agents” are banned in most countries and required to be routinely monitored. We herein report a disposable electrochemiluminescent immunosensors array for near-simultaneous assay of multiple β2-agonist residues in swine urine, by using ractopamine and salbutamol as the models. In this investigation, a screen-printed carbon electrodes array was assembled and acted as the substrate of the immunosensors array. Then the immunosensors array was constructed by site-selectively immobilizing the antigens of ractopamine and salbutamol on the working electrodes of array. After the competitive immuno-binding, with the aid of a homemade single-pore-four-throw switch, the electrochemiluminescent signals of the two β2-agonists were sequentially detected using a non-array detector. The limits of detection for ractopamine and salbutamol were 8.5 and 17 pg/mL, respectively, which were much lower than those of the most previous reports. Compared with other routine methods based on chromatography and ELISA, this method is more suitable for screening of multiple β2-agonists in quantities of samples, owing to its merits of low cost, user-friendliness and high throughput, and shows great promise in food safety and agonist surveillance.

► Multiple “lean meat agent” residues were near-simultaneously detected.
► A disposable electrochemiluminescent immunosensors array was proposed.
► The sensitivity of this proposed method markedly exceeded that of the most reports.
► The cross-talk between the adjacent sensors was effectually avoided.