Production and characterization of DDT antibodies and its application to enzyme immunoassay: Relation of response and affinity to coating ligand

Abstract

To development an immunodetection method for DDT, 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(4-chorophenyl)ethane (p,p'-DDT) and its metabolites (p,p'-DDA, p,p'-DDE, p,p'-DDD), five derivatives of DDT haptens have been synthesised and characterized as coating ligands for antibody evaluation. The appropriate lengths of linkers were introduced to investigate a matching pair of coating ligand and antibody. Among these hapten derivatives, 2,2-bis(4-chlorophenyl)acetic acid (DDA), 5,5-bis(4-chlorophenyl)-5-hydroxypentanoic acid (DDHP) and 5,5-bis(4-chlorophenyl)-5-chloropentanoic acid (DDCP) were conjugated with keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) for its use as an immunogen. The bovine serum albumin (BSA) conjugates of these derivatives were prepared as a coating ligand for monoclonal antibody screening. Fifteen monoclonal antibody clones were screened using these probes. 6,6-Bis(4-chlorophenyl)-6-hydroxyhexanoic acid (DDHH) and 3-[6,6-Bis(4-chlorophenyl)-6-hydroxyhexanoylamino]propanoic acid (DDHHAP), in addition to the above hapten derivatives, were conjugated to ovualbumin (OVA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) for their use as coating ligands to measure the titration level of the antibody and the displacement of free analytes. The indirect competitive ELISA results indicate that the titration level and free analyte displacement were greatly influenced by the DDT derivatives and carrier proteins used. Three matching pairs of monoclonal antibodies and coating ligands were selected for the DDT immunoassay: antibody clone 1A3 and coating ligand DDA-OVA, l A l and DDHHAP-BSA, and 1A4 and DDHP-OVA.