Determination of carbendazim residues in Moroccan tomato samples using local enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and comparison with liquid chromatography

The fungicide carbendazim (CBZ) is not approved for agricultural uses in some countries but still used by many farmers due to its effectiveness. For this reason, previous work of the same authors, they developed a competitive enzyme immunoassay (ELISA) using rabbit polyclonal antibodies detect CBZ. This study aimed validate in-house ELISA after extraction with methanol CBZ analysis tomato samples, and results were compared conventional high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method QuEChERS extraction. showed that both HPLC methods have good repeatability, reproducibility high precision variation verified principal components (PCA). ANOVA tested detection limit (LOD), quantification (LOQ), values (LOD = 0.026± 0.001 µg/L LOQ 0.083 ± 0.003 µg/L) significantly lower than those obtained 0.61 0.02 1.85 0.07 µg/L). analyzing 100 Moroccan samples. These two detected presence above Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) level 9 However, was 79 samples quantified 66 In contrast, 57 35 HPLC. system coupled simple much more sensitive