A NEW APPROACH FOR DISCRIMINATIVE DETECTION OF ORGANOPHOSPHATE NEUROTOXINS IN THE PRESENCE OF OTHER CHOLINESTERASE-INHIBITORS

A radically new approach for the discriminative determination of vario us neurotoxins has been developed. This novel biosensor combines a hig hly sensitive acetylcholinesterase (AChE) biosensor with immobilized o rganophosphate hydrolase (OPH). The value of the new concept was demon strated by the discrimination between carbamate and organophosphorus p esticides. It was shown that the response of traditional AChE-based bi osensor to mixed samples containing paraoxon and carbofuran was not si mply additive, and the measured concentrations of these pesticides wer e very different from their real concentrations. This combined OPK/ACh E system was able to improve the accuracy of the AChE-based biosensor and to uniquely distinguish paraoxon in mixed solutions containing car bofuran. The presented approach promises a new perspective for ''real world'' analyses and opens a new area of discriminative determination of various species in multicomponent solutions.