Toxic Congener-Specific Immunoassay for PCB'S

The widespread occurrence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the environment requires a comprehensive assessment of their environmental impact. This assessment is made substantially more difficult because the PCBs are a mixture of 209 possible chloro-isomers; the most common mixtures may not represent the most significant toxic or biologically active components. Consequently, there is growing recognition that the congener specific analysis of PCBs in the environment is required for the evaluation of the PCBs environmental impact. However, the effort and expense associated with the analysis of these compounds by capillary gas chromatography place substantial restraints on the required studies. Immunoassay based analytical methods have demonstrated the ability to provide both high throughput screening and quantitative analyses. This method provides for a marked reduction in both sample preparation due to high specificity and instrumentation requirements due to assay simplicity. This project will build on ECOCHEM's successful development of a sensitive and quantitative Aroclor directed PCB immunoassay to develop a toxic/ biologically active congener relevant assay for both sample screening and congener specific analysis.