Barriers to adopting immunoassays in the pesticide analytical laboratory

Seiber, J.N.; Li, Q.X.; Van Emon, J.M.

Barriers to adopting immunoassays in the pesticide analytical laboratory

1990

Seiber, J.N. | Li, Q.X. | Van Emon, J.M.

Immunoassays offer much potential for rapid screening and quantitative analysis of pesticides in food and environmental samples. However, despite this potential the field is still dominated by conventional analytical approaches based upon chromatographic and spectrometric methods. We examine some technical barriers to more widespread adoption and utilization of immunoassays, including method development time, amount of information delivered and inexplicable sources of error. Examples are provided for paraquat in relation to exposure assessment in farmworkers and food residue analyses; molinate in relation to low-level detection in surface waters; and bentazon in relation to specificity and sensitivity requirements built in to the immunizing antigen. A comparison of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) results with those obtained from conventional methods will illustrate technical implementation barriers and suggest ways to overcome them.

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