Use of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay technique to monitor pesticide residues in horticultural crops

Organophosphates, carbamates (OP/Cs), and pyrethroids are among the most commonly used pesticides worldwide. These pesticides are highly toxic to insects but also other animals, including humans. The increasing public concern in recent years about possible health risks due to pesticide residues has deeply modified the strategies for crop protection. This study was conducted to assess ELISA as a rapid, economical, and safe analytical procedure as an alternative prior to chromatographic techniques for monitoring the residues of the target pesticides in horticultural crops. The study fulfilled its purpose. With the use of ELISA, more samples (higher than 50%) were quantified with OP/Cs, and pyrethroid residues compared to the chromatography techniques that mostly detected them. The developed ELISA exhibited accuracy (114% recovery with a 3% coefficient of variation for OP/Cs and 115% recovery with a 4.0% coefficient of variation for pyrethroids) and they are ideally suited as a fast, high-throughput, and low-cost (around 100 times lower) screening test for OP/C and pyrethroids residue prior to chromatographic analysis. Lineal relationships (slope 1.0089 with R2 0.9983 for carbaryl [OP], and slope 1.1088 with R2 0.9986 for cypermethrin) between the quantified values obtained by the chromatographic technics with the ELISA test values were observed