Development of Immunochemical Methods for Purification and Detection of the Steroid Drug Medroxyprogesterone Acetate

Alisa Bronshtein, Alex Krol, Haim Schlesinger, Miriam Altstein

Analyst Research Laboratories, Rehovot, Israel.
Department of Entomology, Institute of Plant Protection, The Volcani Center, Bet Dagan, Israel.

DOI: 10.4236/jep.2012.37076                

Abstract

An immunochemical sol-gel-based immunoaffinity purification (IAP) method for purification and detection of the progestin drug medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) was developed. A polyclonal antibody (Ab) for MPA was generated, and two competitive (indirect and direct) sensitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) for its detection were developed and implemented to determine the recovery and efficiency of the sol-gel based IAP method. The detection limits of the assays were 1.4 ± 0.2 ng·mL^-1 (n = 4) and 4.0 ± 0.4 ng·mL^-1 (n = 25) for the indirect and direct ELISAs, respectively. The Abs did not exhibit cross-reactivity with any other progestin or steroid hormone, with the exception of megestrol acetate, with which the Ab exhibited 76% cross-reactivity. The sol-gel IAP method successfully eliminated serum interference to a degree that enabled ELISA analysis of spiked serum samples. This method was also found fully compatible with subsequent chemical analytical methods, such as liquid chromatography followed by mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The approaches developed in this study form a basis for analysis of MPA in biological samples and may be further used to study population exposure to MPA and to monitor MPA contamination in water samples.

Keywords

Medroxyprogesterone Acetate; ELISA; Immunoaffinity Chromatography; Sol-Gel; Pharmaceutical Residues; Residue Monitoring

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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