• Universitat de València
• Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)

• Consuelo Agulló Blanes
• Antonio Abad Fuentes
• Josep Vicent Mercader Badia

Instrumental analytical techniques -especially GC and HPLC coupled to different detectors- are reference methods for pesticide residue analysis. Along the past decade, immunoassays for several groups of pesticides have been developed with high sensitivity and minimal sample preparation. The high level of specificity of antibodies for antigen recognition makes antibodies to be worthwhile tools for detection and quantification of analytes. To obtain antibodies against small molecules –not immunogenic per se-, such as pesticides, it is required to develop molecules -known as haptens- which mimic analyte structure and bear functional groups to couple them to macromolecules. Currently, immunoassay procedures for fungicide detection are required for fast, cheap and simple food residue analysis.

Researchers from University of Valencia and CSIC have obtained haptens, conjugates and antibodies for immunotest development for several widely used agrochemical compounds, including fungicides (such as azoxystrobin, picoxystrobin, pyraclostrobin, trifloxistrobin, kresoxim-methyl, boscalid, fenhexamid, fludioxonil, pyrimethanil, cyprodinil, mepanipyrim and proquinazid), insecticides (such as imidacloprid) and plant growth regulators (such as forchlorfenuron). These are the first immunoassays described for these agrochemicals, and are useful for sensitive and rapid determination of their residues in food and environmental samples. Moreover, researchers have wide know-how in immunoassay development that can be applied to other interesting pesticides or other kind of small organic molecules, such as pharmaceutical drugs, hormones, toxins, drugs of abuse, and antibiotics.

The main application of the technology is in environmental and food analysis, as procedure for rapid determination, both qualitatively and quantitatively, of pesticide residues in food and environmental matrices.

The most remarkable advantages provided by this technology are:

• Simpler pesticide determination than using instrumental analytical techniques
• Rapidity and ability to process high number of samples
• Less sample pretreatment compared with conventional methods
• Ability to carry out in situ analyses with immunotests
• Low cost determination of pesticides

• Patent granted