METHOD FOR DETECTING BOTULINUM TOXINS Russian patent published in 2014 - IPC G01N33/53 

FIELD: medicine.

SUBSTANCE: present invention refers to medicine, namely - to laboratory diagnostics and immunology and may be used for studying the clinical material and food for the presence of botulinum toxins. Substance: a solid support with pore size of 0.17-0.45 mcm is immersed for 1 hour into a solution of a polyvalent antibotulinic serum diluted 1:100 with 0.01 M phosphate buffer pH 7.2; further, the substrate is air-dried, and a test material is spotted in the amount of 1-2 mcl. After the test material soaks completely, the substrate is washed twice with 0.01 M phosphate buffer pH 7.2 containing 0.05% Tween 20; then the substrate is placed into 2% bovine serum albumin in the phosphate buffer or 2% sodium caseinate in the phosphate buffer for 30 minutes. Thereafter, the substrate is washed twice with the phosphate buffer with Tween and then placed into the polyvalent antibotulinic serum marked with colloidal silver particles for 1 hour. The substrate is placed for 3-5 minutes into an aqueous solution containing 0.5% citric acid, 0.1% metol and 0.2% silver nitrate, and then washed in flowing water. The presence of botulinum toxins is visualised in the test material: if grey spots are formed in the places where the test material have been spotted, the test material appears to contain botulinum toxins; if the substrate shows no stained spots, the material seems to contain no botulinum toxins.

EFFECT: method enables detecting the minimum amounts of botulinum toxins; it is rapid, efficient, easy to implement and record the reaction results, widely applicable; it may be used in the field; it requires no expensive chemical agents and equipment.

2 cl, 4 ex