Development of New Antibodies and an ELISA System to Detect the Potato Alkaloids α-Solanine and α-Chaconine

Abstract

Food poisoning can be caused by the potato alkaloids α-solanine (SO) and α-chaconine (CHA). Therefore, this study aimed to establish new enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) for detecting these two toxins in biological samples and potato extracts. Two antibodies that bind to solanidine, a chemical compound found in both SO and CHA, were newly developed, and two types of ELISAs (Sold1 ELISA and Sold2 ELISA) were constructed. We measured SO and CHA diluted in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), serum, and urine. The detection performance of the two ELISAs for SO and CHA in PBS was higher than in serum and urine, and the sensitivity of Sold2 ELISA was lower than that of Sold1 ELISA. Thus, we used these ELISAs to measure SO and CHA in potato part extracts and found that potato sprouts contained approximately 80-fold more SO and CHA than tubers and 8-fold more SO and CHA than peels. Although the detection sensitivity of SO and CHA depends on the sample types, these ELISAs may be effective as future clinical and food testing methods after further improvements.

Application of Immunoassay Technology in Food Inspection

“…The natural toxins α-solanine (SO) and α-chaconine (CHA) comprise approximately 95% of the total glycoalkaloid (GA) content in potatoes; ingestion of more than 1 mg of GAs per kg of body weight is toxic to humans. In order to simultaneously measure SO and CHA, Okada et al [2] used solanidine, a chemical compound found in both SO and CHA, as the hapten for rabbit immunity. Two new polyclonal antibodies (pAbs) that bind to both SO and CHA were purified and obtained.…”