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Updated: Mar 21, 2026

In Vitro Biochemical Assays using Biotin Labels to Study Protein-Nucleic Acid Interactions
Published on: July 17, 2019
Production and characterization of a biotinylated single-chain variable fragment antibody for detection of
Huimin Wang1, Fengchun Zhao1, Xiao Han1
1Department of Microbiology, College of Life Science, Key Laboratory for Agriculture Microbiology, Shandong Agricultural University, Taian 271018, China.
Abstract:
In this article, we reported the development of a biotinylated single-chain variable fragment (scFv) antibody based indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (IC-ELISA) for parathion-methyl (PM) detection. Firstly, a phage display library was generated using a pre-immunized BALB/C mouse against a specific hapten of PM. After four rounds of panning, the scFv gene fragments were transferred into a secreted expression vector. Then, the scFv antibodies were secreted expressed and screened by IC-ELISA against PM. The selected scFv antibody was fused with a biotin acceptor domain (BAD) and inserted into pET-28a(+) vector for high-level expression in Escherichia coli BL2 (DE3). After optimizing expression conditions, the scFv-BAD antibody was expressed as a soluble protein and biotinylated in vitro by the E. coli biotin ligase (BirA). Subsequently, the biotinylated scFv-BAD antibody was purified with a high yield of 59.2 ± 3.7 mg/L of culture, and was characterized by SDS-PAGE and western blotting. Finally, based on the biotinylated scFv-BAD, a sensitive IC-ELISA for detection of PM was developed, and the 50% inhibition value (IC50) of PM was determined as 14.5 ng/mL, with a limit of detection (LOD, IC10) of 0.9 ng/mL. Cross-reactivity (CR) studies revealed that the scFv antibody showed desirable specificity for PM.

