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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania » Eastern Regional Research Center » Microbial and Chemical Food Safety » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #312377
Title: Evaluation of a fast and simple sample preparation method for PBDE flame retardants and DDT pesticides in fish for analysis by ELISA compared with GC-MS/MS

Author
item Sapozhnikova, Yelena
item Simons, Tawana
item Lehotay, Steven

Submitted to: Agricultural Food and Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/3/2015
Publication Date: 2/3/2015
Publication URL: https://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/60867
Citation: Sapozhnikova, Y.V., Simons, T., Lehotay, S.J. 2015. Evaluation of a fast and simple sample preparation method for PBDE flame retardants and DDT pesticides in fish for analysis by ELISA compared with GC-MS/MS. Agricultural Food and Science. 63:4429-4434.

Interpretive Summary: Simple, fast, and inexpensive sample preparation techniques are critical for the analysis of chemical contaminants in food and environmental samples to ensure food safety and ecosystem health. In this study, we evaluated a simple and rapid sample preparation method previously developed for the analysis of persistent organic pollutants in fish using low-pressure gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LPGC-MS/MS), for the analysis of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) flame retardants and DDT pesticides by commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits. Incurred fish tissues of salmon, white croaker, and a Standard Reference Material (Lake Michigan fish tissue) with lipid content 3-10% were analyzed by both ELISA and LPGC-MS/MS, and the results were in good agreement. This study demonstrated that this method can be adopted for fast and inexpensive analysis in any typical laboratory and possibly in the field.

Technical Abstract: A simple, fast, and cost-effective sample preparation method, previously developed and validated for the analysis of organic contaminants in fish using low-pressure gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LPGC-MS/MS), was evaluated for analysis of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) pesticides using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The sample preparation technique was based on the quick, easy, cheap, rugged, effective and safe (QuEChERS) technique with filter-vial dispersive solid phase extraction (d-SPE). Incurred PBDEs and DDTs were analyzed in three types of fish with 3-10% lipid content: Pacific croaker, salmon and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Standard Reference Material 1947 (Lake Michigan fish tissue). LPGC-MS/MS and ELISA results were in agreement: 108-111% and 65-82% accuracy ELISA vs. LPGC-MS/MS results for PBDEs and DDTs, respectively. Similar detection limits were achieved for ELISA and LPGC-MS/MS. Matrix effects (MEs) were significant (e.g. -60%) for PBDEs measurement in ELISA, but not a factor in the case of DDT pesticides. This study demonstrated that the sample preparation method can be adopted for semi-quantitative screening analysis of fish samples by commercial kits for PBDEs and DDTs.