Production of monoclonal antibodies for sandwich immunoassay detection of ciguatoxin 51-hydroxyCTX3C.

Every year, more than 50,000 people in subtropical and tropical regions suffer from ciguatera seafood poisoning. The extremely low level of the causative neurotoxins (ciguatoxins) in fish has hampered the preparation of antibodies for detection of the toxins. In this study, we produced a monoclonal antibody (8H4) against the right end of ciguatoxin CTX1B (1) and 51-hydroxyCTX3C (3) by immunizing mice with the keyhole limpet hemocyanin-conjugate of the synthetic HIJKLM ring fragment (10). We used 8H4 and another previously reported monoclonal antibody (10C9) that recognizes the left end of 3 to develop a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect 3. The assay could detect 3 down to the ppb level and lacked cross-reactivity with other related marine toxins, including brevetoxin A, brevetoxin B, okadaic acid, and maitotoxin.