Development of a novel bead-based 96-well filtration plate competitive immunoassay for the detection of Gentamycin

We developed a sensitive, simple, inexpensive and rapid bead-based immunoassay platform, composed of liposomal nanovesicle amplification system, Gentamycin sulfate beads and 96-well filtration plates. In the beginning of the assay, Gentamycin sulfate beads, Gentamycin sulfate and Gentamycin specific antibody were incubated in a bottom-sealed 96-well filtration plate. After incubation, washing was done by running washing buffer through the unsealed filtration plate with only gravity and the antibody-Gentamycin bead complexes were retained in the plate. Fluorescent dye-loaded protein G-liposomal nanovesicles were then added to specifically bind to antibodies on the retained beads. After washing unbound nanovesicles, millions of fluorescent dye molecules were released by adding a detergent solution to lyse liposomal nanovesicles. The limit of detection (LOD) of this novel detection platform in TBS and in skim milk were 52.65 ng/mL and 14.16 ng/mL, which are both sufficient for detecting the 200 ng/mL Codex maximum residual level (MRL). The dynamic ranges were both from each of their LODs to 100 μg/mL. The 50% inhibition concentrations (IC50) in TBS and skim milk were 199.66 ng/mL and 360.81 ng/mL, respectively. We also demonstrated the good specificity of this platform by comparing detection results between pure Gentamycin solution and a mixture solution of 6 different antibiotics including Gentamycin in skim milk. The entire assay with 60 samples was conducted within 2 h. In sum, this novel biosensing platform not only fulfilled most benefits of magnetic bead-based assays, but also was inexpensive and convenient by replacing the magnetic separation with filtration plate separation.