Chemiluminescence multichannel immunosensor for biodetection

An improved portable detector for biological compounds, the chemiluminescence multichannel immunosensor (CL-MADAG), has been developed and characterised. The device is based on a capillary ELISA technique in combination with a miniaturised fluidics system and uses chemiluminescence as the detection principle. The fluidics system construction allows three chemiluminescence immunoassays to be performed simultaneously within three fused silica capillaries (FSC). The CL-MADAG was characterised in a series of experiments with staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) as a model toxin, the bacterial phage virus M13 as a virus simulant, and a pathogenic strain of Escherichia coli as simulant for bacteria. It was shown that the CL-MADAG can assay liquid samples for these substances within 24 min. The detection limits were 5 ng/ml for SEB, 105 cfu/ml for E. coli O157:H7 and 107 pfu/ml for M13. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.