Development of a competitive direct enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for teicoplanin

Abstract

A competitive direct enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (cdELISA) was developed for selective and rapid detection of a glycopeptide antibiotic, teicoplanin (TP). TP was conjugated to bovine serum albumin (BSA) for use as an immunogen. Repeated subcutaneous injections of 0.5 mg of the conjugate was effective in generating specific polyclonal antibody (PAb) toward TP in rabbits, as determined by cdELISA. TP-horseradish peroxidase conjugate (TP-HRP) was used as an enzyme marker. The cdELISA was developed based on a competition reaction between TP-BSA PAb and TP-HRP conjugate. The TP-BSA PAb was highly sensitive (detection limit, 0.3 ng/ml) and specific toward teicoplanin, showing no cross-reactivity to other glycopeptide antibiotics including vancomycin. There were good correlations (r2=0.84 and 0.76, respectively) between cdELISA and microbiological assay, and high-performance liquid chromatography. The cdELISA system developed in this work is expected to be useful not only for selective and rapid monitoring of TP but also for study of TP pharmacokinetics.