Rapid Detection of Melamine in Milk Using Immunological Separation and Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

We integrated immunological separation and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to detect melamine in milk. Antimelamine was produced by New Zealand white rabbits following the injection with melamine hapten-ovalbumin immunogen. Melamine was separated from milk by binding to the converted protein G-antimelamine complex. After releasing antimelamine and melamine from the complex, the eluents were deposited directly onto the silver dendrite SERS-active substrate for spectral collection. Multivariate statistical analysis including unsupervised principal component analysis and supervised soft independent modeling of class analogy validated the feasibility of applying this method to detect trace levels of melamine in milk. The limit of detection can be as low as 0.79×10(-3) mmol/L. The overall analysis can be completed in 20 min, thus, it is a high-throughput technique to screen for melamine in milk samples.