[Determination of cardenolides in Digitalis lanata by a solid-phase immunoenzyme method]

A competitive solid-phase EIA technique using high-affinity digoxin-specific monoclonal antibodies has been developed to determine cardenolides in Digitalis lanata. The test-system can detect digoxin and closely related compounds in concentration of 0.1 nmol/ml. The content of cardenolides, tested by ELISA, correlated well with the total content of digoxin, deslanoside C and lanatoside C as analysed by HPLC. The test-system is useful in estimating the productivity of large series and samples of tissue clones of Digitalis lanata.