Clinical Chemistry, Vol 40, 1819-1822, Copyright © 1994 by American Association for Clinical Chemistry

Feasibility studies for simultaneous immunochemical multianalyte drug assay by capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence

FT Chen and RA Evangelista
Advanced Technology Center, Beckman Instruments Inc., Fullerton, CA 92634.

We present a method for the simultaneous quantification of multiple drug analytes in urine, based on combining immunochemical binding with capillary electrophoretic separation. Two fluorescent drug-cyanine (Cy) dye conjugates were prepared as competing species for the immunoassay. Morphine was derivatized with Cy5 (lambda max = 652 nm, epsilon = 215,000 mol-1cm-1 L), phencyclidine (PCP) with Cy5.5 (lambda max = 675 nm, epsilon = 200,000 mol-1cm-1L). The high-efficiency resolving power of the capillary electrophoresis system (20 microns x 27 cm column) separated the individual labeled drugs, and the antigen-antibody complexes were detected by laser-induced fluorescence (laser: 10 mW He- Ne at 632.8 nm) with Cy5 diacid as internal standard. Simultaneous competitive immunoassay of morphine and PCP in urine showed that the free labeled-drug peak areas were proportional to the concentrations of the drug species present in the urine sample. This immunoassay can be performed routinely and reproducibly in < 5 min with analytical detection limits of 4 nmol/L for PCP and 40 nmol/L for morphine.