Sample clean-up by sol-gel immunoaffinity chromatography for determination of chloramphenicol in shrimp

The paper describes the characterisation and application of sol-gel columns prepared by entrapping anti-chloramphenicol (CAP) antibodies. Retention of CAP in the column was caused by specific interactions with the anti-CAP antibodies and not by non-specific adsorption to the sol-gel glass. After optimising important operation conditions, e.g. feeding medium, feeding flow-rate, elution medium, elution flow-rate and elution volume, the sol-gel columns were included in a clean-up procedure developed to determine CAP in shrimp. The selectivity of the columns was high enough to efficiently remove interfering matrix compounds. Due to the chromatographic conditions applied retention of cross-reacting substances in the immunoaffinity column did not pose a problem. CAP recovery of the analytical method was 68% with a relative standard deviation of 4% (n=4). In spite of applying highly complex shrimp extracts the columns could be used for clean-up of at least 12 samples. However, when detection of CAP is carried out with an UV detector the analytical method has a relatively poor sensitivity (LOD=1.8 ng/g, S/N=3). The most obvious way is to replace the UV detector by a detector based on an inherently more sensitive and selective detection principle, like a mass spectrometer.