Development and application of immunoassays for rapid quality control of the antimalarial drug combination artesunate-mefloquine.

ABSTRACT: Artesunate-mefloquine is one of the commonly-used artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs). Given the significance of drug quality in the management of malaria cases, the objective of this study was to develop antibody-based assays as the point-of-care (POC) tests for monitoring the quality of this ACT. Using mefloquine conjugated to a carrier protein as the immunogen, we selected a specific monoclonal antibody (mAb) against mefloquine with no cross-reactivity to other antimalarial drugs. Using this mAb, we developed a direct competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (dcELISA) and a lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) to measure the mefloquine contents. The dcELISA for mefloquine showed a 50% inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) and a working range of 2.79 ng/mL and 0.58-16.37 

SUBMITTER: Qian J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9511660 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature