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An immunoassay for a urinary metabolite as a biomarker of human exposure to the pyrethroid insecticide permethrin

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Abstract

Permethrin is the most popular synthetic pyrethroid insecticide used in agriculture and public health. For the assessment of human exposure to permethrin, a competitive indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of the glycine conjugate of a major metabolite, cis-/trans-3-(2,2-dichlorovinyl)-2,2-dimethylcyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (DCCA), of permethrin was developed based on a polyclonal antibody. An assay based on an antibody with a high sensitivity was optimized and characterized. The IC50 value and the detection range for trans-DCCA–glycine, in the assay buffer were 1.2 and 0.2−7.0 μg/L, respectively. The antibody recognized trans-DCCA–glycine and the mixture of cis-/trans-DCCA–glycine with an isomer range from 30:70 to 50:50 nearly equally. Little or no cross-reactivity to permethrin and its other free metabolites or glycine conjugates was measured. The integration of the ELISA and solid-phase extraction which was used to reduce the matrix effect from human urine samples provided for analysis of total cis-/trans-DCCA–glycine at low parts per billion levels in the samples. The limit of quantitation of the target analyte was 1.0 μg/L in urine with a limit of detection of 0.1 μg/L in buffer. This assay might be a useful tool for monitoring human exposure to permethrin.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the NIEHS Superfund Basic Research Program P42 ES04699, the NIEHS Center for Environmental Health Sciences P30 ES05707, the Department of Defense US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command contract DAMD17-01-1-0769, and the NIOSH Center for Agricultural Disease and Research, Education, and Prevention 1 U50 OH07550.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology and UCD Cancer Research Center, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Ki Chang Ahn, Seung-Jin Ma, Hsing-Ju Tsai, Shirley J. Gee & Bruce D. Hammock

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  1. Ki Chang Ahn
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  2. Seung-Jin Ma
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  3. Hsing-Ju Tsai
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  4. Shirley J. Gee
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  5. Bruce D. Hammock
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Correspondence to Bruce D. Hammock.

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Ahn, K.C., Ma, SJ., Tsai, HJ. et al. An immunoassay for a urinary metabolite as a biomarker of human exposure to the pyrethroid insecticide permethrin. Anal Bioanal Chem 384, 713–722 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-005-0220-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-005-0220-5

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