Broad-specific immunochromatography for simultaneous detection of various sulfonylureas in adulterated multi-herbal tea.

Sulfonylureas (SUs) are a series of anti-diabetic drugs widely used for type 2 diabetes mellitus for clinic treat. However, it is often illegally adulterated in multi-herbal tea to improve the claimed anti-diabetic activity in recent years. In this study, a novel hapten was rationally designed, and a broad-specific monoclonal antibody (anti-SUs mAb) recognizing nine SUs was developed. This mAb was used to develop a colloidal gold lateral flow immunochromatographic assay (CG-LFIA). The anti-SUs mAb demonstrated half inhibitory concentration (IC50) ranged from 0.15 ng/mL to 3.25 ng/ mL for nine SUs by ELISA. The cut-off value of developed CG-LFIA for nine SUs was from 3 to 100 ng/ mL for the spiked samples. LC-MS/MS confirmed the reliability of the new CG-LFIA. The results indicated that the proposed CG-LFIA could be an ideal method in on-site screening surveillance assay for SUs illegally adulterated in multi-herbal tea products.