The Present State and Perspective on Simple and Rapid Immunochemical Detection for Pesticide Residues in Crops

Abstract

The presence of pesticide residues in crops is a matter of global public concern, and simple, rapid, and reliable methods for pesticide residue analysis are essential to ensure food safety. In this review, I evaluate a commercially available kit-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), which uses specific or selective antigen-antibody interactions, for simple and rapid pesticide residue analysis in crops, particularly before shipment of the crops. The evaluated ELISAs were found to be sufficiently sensitive to detect three pesticides (imidacloprid, fenitrothion, and chlorothalonil) at levels close to the maximum residue limits. Simple dilution of sample extracts alone was sufficient to surmount the problem of matrix interference, which can be troublesome with ELISA. The average recovery rates of the three pesticides exceeded 84%, and the average coefficients of variation were less than 13% for all tested crop samples. The results obtained with the ELISAs correlated well with those obtained by reference chromatographic methods for all three pesticides (r > 0.96). These findings strongly suggest that ELISA is a suitable method for quantitative and reliable screening analysis of these pesticides in crops without the need for sample pretreatment. Elimination of this need can be expected to save time and money and considerably increase sample throughput.