Determination of carbendazim residues in Moroccan tomato samples using local enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and comparison with liquid chromatography

Najwa Bellemjid; Ahmed Moussaif; Mohammed El Mzibri; Abdelhalim Mesfioui; Abdelghani Iddar

doi:10.18006/2023.11(2).339.350

Authors

Najwa Bellemjid Biotechnology and Engineering of Biomolecules Unit, National Centre for Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology (CNESTEN-Morocco), Rabat, Morocco
Ahmed Moussaif Biotechnology and Engineering of Biomolecules Unit, National Centre for Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology (CNESTEN-Morocco), Rabat, Morocco
Mohammed El Mzibri Biotechnology and Engineering of Biomolecules Unit, National Centre for Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology (CNESTEN-Morocco), Rabat, Morocco https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3148-1527
Abdelhalim Mesfioui Biology and Health Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra, Morocco
Abdelghani Iddar Biotechnology and Engineering of Biomolecules Unit, National Centre for Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology (CNESTEN-Morocco), Rabat, Morocco https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6111-0607

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18006/2023.11(2).339.350

Keywords:

Carbendazim, Moroccan tomato, HPLC-UV, ELISA, Extraction

Abstract

The fungicide carbendazim (CBZ) is not approved for agricultural uses in some countries but is still used by many farmers due to its effectiveness. For this reason, in previous work of the same authors, they developed a competitive enzyme immunoassay (ELISA) using rabbit polyclonal antibodies to detect CBZ. This study aimed to validate this in-house ELISA after extraction with methanol for CBZ analysis in tomato samples, and the results were compared with the conventional high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method after QuEChERS extraction. The results showed that both ELISA and HPLC methods have good repeatability, reproducibility and high precision with a good variation verified by principal components analysis (PCA). ANOVA tested the detection limit (LOD), and quantification limit (LOQ), and the values for ELISA (LOD = 0.026± 0.001 µg/L and LOQ = 0.083 ± 0.003 µg/L) were significantly lower than those obtained by HPLC (LOD = 0.61 ± 0.02 µg/L and LOQ = 1.85 ± 0.07 µg/L). ELISA and HPLC were used for analyzing CBZ in 100 Moroccan tomato samples. These two methods detected the presence of CBZ above the Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) level in 9 samples. However, the presence of the CBZ was detected in the 79 samples by ELISA and quantified in 66 samples. In contrast, the presence of CBZ was detected in 57 and quantified in 35 samples by HPLC. These results showed that the ELISA system coupled with a simple methanol extraction is much more sensitive than HPLC after QuEChERS extraction.

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