Abstract
Propiconazole (PCZ) is a fungicide popularly used to prevent and control wheat and rice bakanae disease, etc. However, it was recently found to be illegally employed as a plant regulator to induce thick stems and dark green leaves of Brassica campestris, a famous vegetable in Guangdong, South China. Due to a lack of available recognition molecules to the target analyte, it is still a big challenge to establish a rapid surveillance screening method. In this study, a novel chiral hapten was rationally designed, and an artificial immunogen was then prepared for the generation of a specific antibody against propiconazole for the first time. Using the obtained antibody, a highly sensitive time-resolved fluorescence microspheres lateral flow immunochromatographic assay (TRFMs-LFIA) was established with a visual limit of detection of 100 ng/mL and a quantitative limit of detection of 1.92 ng/mL for propiconazole. TRFMs-LFIA also exhibited good recoveries ranging from 78.6% to 110.7% with coefficients of variation below 16%. The analysis of blind real-life samples showed a good agreement with results obtained using HPLC-MS/MS. Therefore, the proposed method could be used as an ideal screening surveillance tool for the detection of propiconazole in vegetables.
Highlights
Propiconazole (PCZ) is a systemic triazole fungicide that can prevent most fungal diseases in banana, wheat and rice [1]
As propiconazole is too small a molecule to be immunogenic and to exert an immune response to an animal body, the hapten needs to be conjugated to a macromolecular protein carrier to become a complete antigen for animal immunity [39]
Propiconazole lacks an active group for conjugation with a carrier protein
Summary
Propiconazole (PCZ) is a systemic triazole fungicide that can prevent most fungal diseases in banana, wheat and rice [1]. It is favored by farmers for its broad-spectrum sterilization and long duration. The crops registered for using of propiconazole in China are banana, wheat and rice [2]. In 2018, the annual use of propiconazole in China reached 2087.42 tons, which exceeded other countries [3]. Related studies have confirmed that propiconazole can result in genetic toxicity, liver toxicity and growth toxicity [5,6,7]. The U.S Environmental Protection Agency has included propiconazole in the list of possible human carcinogens [8]
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