Development of a Monoclonal Antibody-Based Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay for Determination of Vomitoxin (DON) in Coicis Semen

Coicis Semen is a common bulk medicinal material used for both medicine and food, which has the effect of promoting diuresis, draining dampness, invigorating the spleen and checking diarrhea. It is derived from Coix lacryma-jobi var. ma-yuen of the family Poaceae, and is easily contaminated by fungi such as Fusarium graminearum and F. flavum due to climate reasons to produce vomitoxin. The guiding principles for determination of vomitoxin in Chinese medicinal materials in Chinese Pharmacopoeia are mainly HPLC and LC-MS, which have long detection period and are time-consuming and laborious, and thus cannot meet the requirements of on-site quality inspection of drugs. The complete antigen of vomitoxin-protein was obtained by chemical derivatization of vomitoxin. The monoclonal antibody against vomitoxin was prepared by classic monoclonal antibody preparation technology, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) method for detection of vomitoxin in Coicis Semen was established through methodological investigation. The IC_(50) based on the ELISA for vomitoxin in Coicis Semen was 3.88 μg·L~(-1), and the average recoveries and the RSD were 77.32%-93.73% and 4.6%-9.7%, respectively. With the established ELISA method, the vomitoxin residue in 14 batches of Coicis Semen samples were determined and validated by LC-MS, and the correlation between the two assays was found to be 0.997 8, indicating that the established ELISA method could be used for quantitative determination of vomitoxin residue in Coicis Semen and could achieve the rapid quantitative determination of the vomitoxin residue.