A highly sensitive monoclonal antibody based biosensor for quantifying 3–5 ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in aqueous environmental samples

Abstract

Immunoassays based on monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are highly sensitive for the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and can be employed to determine concentrations in near real-time. A sensitive generic mAb against PAHs, named as 2G8, was developed by a three-step screening procedure. It exhibited nearly uniformly high sensitivity against 3-ring to 5-ring unsubstituted PAHs and their common environmental methylated PAHs, with IC50 values between 1.68–31 μg/L (ppb). 2G8 has been successfully applied on the KinExA Inline Biosensor system for quantifying 3-5 ring PAHs in aqueous environmental samples. PAHs were detected at a concentration as low as 0.2 μg/L. Furthermore, the analyses only required 10 min for each sample. To evaluate the accuracy of the 2G8-based biosensor, the total PAH concentrations in a series of environmental samples analyzed by biosensor and GC-MS were compared. In most cases, the results yielded a good correlation between methods. This indicates that generic antibody 2G8 based biosensor possesses significant promise for a low cost, rapid method for PAH determination in aqueous samples.

Effects-based spatial assessment of contaminated estuarine sediments from Bear Creek, Baltimore Harbor, MD, USA

“…The biosensor, a comparatively new technology, has been used effectively to produce near real-time, on-site, quantitative analysis of PAHs in the aqueous environment (Spier et al 2011). A recent study by Li et al (2016) compared measurements of PAHs in sediment porewater by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) and the antibody-based biosensor and demonstrated a very strong positive correlation between the methods ( r 2 = 0.98; supplemental material Fig. S2).…”

“…The antibody used was 2G8, an anti-pyrene-butyric acid monoclonal antibody produced in mice, which is sensitive to all 3- to 5-ring PAHs (Li et al 2016). Sediment samples were centrifuged (3500 g × 15 min) to extract porewater, which was then glass-fiber filtered to 0.7 μm.…”

“…Phenanthrene standards were used to create a standard curve to estimate final concentrations in porewater samples. Analysis of PAH pw was conducted according to methods in Li et al (2016). PAH pw was used as a proxy for other chemicals in sediment cores, given cost, and sediment volume constraints which limited the analysis that could be performed on toxicity-tested sediments.…”

“…An additional objective of the study was to compare toxicity results at surface and at depth to various contaminant classes, particularly the bioavailable fraction of PAHs found in porewater. In pursuing this objective, conventional analytical techniques were used to measure various whole-sediment metal and POP concentrations, whereas an antibody-based PAH biosensor was used to measure porewater PAH concentrations (Li et al 2016). The field-portable device required minimal sample volumes (≤10 mL) allowing measurement of total PAHs within the limited porewater available from sediment core segments, demonstrating the value of the technique for low-cost pollution mapping at contaminated sites.…”

Evaluating porewater polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon–related toxicity at a contaminated sediment site using a spiked field‐sediment approach

“…Given this knowledge gap, measurement of PAHs in porewater is preferable to extrapolation from whole-sediment analysis with corrections for organic carbon content, grain size, and other sediment characteristics. One such tool, an antibody-based PAH biosensor, was employed in the present study to measure total PAHs in sediment porewater (Li et al 2016). These methods are costly and labor-intensive and require large volumes of sediment to obtain sufficient porewater volumes for analysis, particularly when low-level detection of contaminants is involved (Spier et al 2011).…”