Improved fluoroquinolone detection in ELISA through engineering of a broad-specific single-chain variable fragment binding simultaneously to 20 fluoroquinolones

Abstract

Fluoroquinolones (FQs) are a group of synthetic, broad-spectrum antibacterial agents. Due to its extensive use in animal industry and aquaculture, residues of these antibiotics and the emergence of bacteria resistant to FQs have become a major public health issue. To prepare a generic antibody capable of recognizing nearly all FQs, a single-chain variable fragment (scFv) was generated from the murine hybridoma cells C49H1 producing a FQ-specific monoclonal antibody. This scFv was characterized by indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ciELISA), and it showed identical binding properties to parental monoclonal antibody: it was capable of recognizing 17 of 20 targeted FQs below maximum residue limits, except for sarafloxacin (SAR), difloxacin (DIF), and trovafloxacin (TRO) which are highly concerned members in the FQs family. In order to broaden the specificity of this scFv to SAR and its analogues (DIF and TRO), protein homology modeling and antibody-ligands docking analysis were employed to identify the potential key amino acid residues involved in hapten antibody. A mutagenesis phage display library was generated by site directed mutagenesis randomizing five aminoacid residues in the third heavy-chain complementarity determining region. After one round of panning against biotinylated norfloxacin (NOR) and four rounds of panning against biotinylated SAR, scFv variants we screened showed up to 10-fold improved IC(50) against SAR, DIF, and TRO in ciELISA while the specificity against other FQs was fully retained.