Detecting clothianidin residues in environmental and agricultural samples using rapid, sensitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and gold immunochromatographic assay

Two rapid, sensitive immunoassays based on monoclonal antibody for detecting clothianidin were developed and applied in agricultural samples: a quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and a semiquantitative gold immunochromatographic assay (GICA). Under optimal conditions, the half-maximal inhibition concentration (IC 50 ) and the limit of detection (LOD, IC 10 ) of clothianidin were 25.6 and 3.8   ng   mL −   1 for ELISA. GICA using colloidal gold-MAb probe had a visual detection limit of 8   ng   mL −   1 , and the results can be judged by the naked eye within 10   min. The cross-reactivities of the immunoassays with its analogues were negligible except for that with dinotefuran. For the spiked agricultural samples, recoveries of 78.0 to 114.5% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 3.2 to 12.8% were achieved for ELISA and further evaluated by GICA. Furthermore, the results of ELISA and GICA for the authentic samples correlated well with those obtained by HPLC . Overall, the proposed ELISA and GICA are satisfactory for rapid, sensitive, and quantitative/semiquantitative detection of clothianidin residues in agricultural samples.