Development and characterization of monoclonal antibodies reactive with paraquat.

A set of three anti-paraquat monoclonal antibodies(MoAbs), named APM-1, APM-2 and APM-3, has been isolated. In order to evaluate the ability of these MoAbs to recognize various kinds of bipyridyl herbicides and similar congeners of paraquat, a competition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using avidin-biotin complex (ABC) was developed. All three antibodies strongly recognized paraquat and slightly did the other analogs. These three MoAbs are therefore advantageous to a toxicological study of paraquat and of its localization in tissues.