Production of ultrasensitive generic monoclonal antibodies against major aflatoxins using a modified two-step screening procedure Original Research Article

Monoclonal antibodies (McAbs) cross-reactive with four major aflatoxins were achieved using a modified two-step screening procedure. The first step was twice modified indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and resulted in positive hybridomas and hapten-specific antibodies. The modified indirect competitive ELISA (ciELISA) was the second step, in which the competition incubation time was decreased to 30 min, aflatoxin B1, B2, G1 and G2 were all used as competitors, the concentrations of four aflatoxins were gradiently decreased in each screening. 2–3 subclonings were performed after every modified fusion and resulted in eight hybridomas that secreted antibodies with good cross-reactivity and high affinity to four aflatoxins. Five McAbs were chosen for further analysis. Of the five, two antibodies had similar reaction efficiency with aflatoxin B1, B2 and G1 but showed a weak cross-reaction to G2. Another two had almost identical reaction capability with four aflatoxins. One clone 1C11 exhibited the highest sensitivity for all four aflatoxins. The concentrations of aflatoxin B1, B2, G1 and G2 at 50% inhibition for 1C11 were 1.2, 1.3, 2.2 and 18.0 pg mL−1 respectively. This is the most sensitive for all four major aflatoxins described so far. The results indicated that the modified two-step screening procedure had superiority and these antibodies could be used for simultaneous analysis of total aflatoxins.