Development of an immunologial test strip for detecting melamine resides in milk products +CD

Abstract

A simple, rapid and sensitive immunological test strip based on a polyclonal antibody was developed and validated for the detection of melamine (MEL) residues in milk products. Compared with other immunological and instrumental methods such as enzyme-linked immuno assay (ELISA), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS), liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), immunological test strip has many advantages including: fastness, simplicity, sensitivity and cost- effectiveness. This is a qualitative analytical method. The limit of detection was estimated to be 500 ppb in milk products, since the detection test line on the test strip completely appeared at this concentration. Sample pretreatment was simple and rapid, the results can be obtained within 3-10 min. The results of test strip were in good agreement when comparing with the maximum amount of melamine allowed in milk products. The results demonstrate that the developed method is suitable for the onsite determination of MEL residues in a large number of samples. Key words: Melamine, colloidal gold, test strip, milk products