Rapid enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunochromatographic strip for detecting ribavirin in chicken muscles

The use of ribavirin (RBV) as an antiviral drug for livestock has been prohibited in China, the USA, and many other countries. In this study, we developed a rapid and sensitive indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ic-ELISA) and a gold nanoparticle immunochromatographic (ICA) strip test for detecting RBV in chicken muscles. Under the optimum assay conditions, where the assay employed phosphate-buffered saline at pH 7.4, no acetonitrile, and an ionic strength of 0.8%, the quantitative working range was 1.43–26.47 ng/ml with an IC₅₀ of 6.15 ng/ml. The recovery rate for RBV in real samples ranged from 82.1% to 112.3%. The immunochromatographic test strip method had a visual cutoff value of 50 μg/kg. Given their high recovery rates and good sensitivity, the proposed ic-ELISA and ICA methods could be useful for the RBV analysis in chicken tissue samples.