Comparison of different chelates for lanthanide labeling of antibodies and application in a Western blot immunoassay combined with detection by laser ablation (LA-)ICP-MS

We have developed lanthanide labeling strategies for antibodies to adapt conventional biochemical workflows like Western blot immunoassays for detection by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analysis with a special interest to apply the multi-element capabilities of ICP-MS for the design of multiplexed immunoassays. In this paper the lanthanide labeling of antibodies with MeCAT was investigated and the reaction conditions were optimized for application in a Western blot immunoassay analyzed by LA-ICP-MS. Furthermore, the MeCAT labeling strategy was compared with two other commercially available labeling reagents, MAXPAR™ and SCN-DOTA. As a proof-of-principle experiment chemically induced alterations of cytochrome P450 protein expression were investigated and the suitability of the differentially labeled antibodies for Western blot immunoassays of a complex liver microsomal protein fraction was tested. Limits of detection (LODs) in the lower fmol range were reached in the Western blot application using MeCAT and MAXPAR™ as element labeling reagents, whereas even sub-fmol LODs can be achieved in a dot blot experiment for the pure antibodies.