Development of chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay for the determination of malachite green in seafood

An indirect competitive chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay method was developed for screening malachite green (MG). Assay conditions, including the concentration of coating, antibody dilution, incubation time, dilution buffer, ionic strength and pH, were optimised. Under the optimised conditions, coating antigen concentration was 125 ng/mL; and dilution fold of antibody was 40,000. The 50% inhibition values of 0.22 ng/mL for MG were achieved with a limit of detection of 0.01 ng/mL, the linear range was from 0.03 ng/mL to 3.27 ng/mL. The assay showed a little cross-reactivity of 3.4%, 2.7% and 1.0% with methylene blue, brilliant green and crystal violet, respectively, and negligible cross-reactivity with other analogues of MG. The developed method has been used to quantify MG in seafood samples. The recovery of MG ranged from 82.43% to 108.0% at four concentrations (0.1, 1, 3 and 5 ng/mL), and the coefficients of variation were less than 13%. A comparison results between the high-performance liquid chromatography and the developed assay showed good relativity. The results indicated that the assay was a sensitive and stable method for screening MG.