Ethylenediamine modified bovine serum albumin as protein carrier in the production of antibody against mycotoxins

The efficiency of conjugation of mycotoxin derivatives containing a carboxylic group or other related functional groups to bovine serum albumin (BSA) by water soluble carbodiimide method, mixed anhydride method and reductive alkylation technique, improved considerably when a modified BSA was used in which the carboxylic groups in the protein were blocked by ethylenediamine (EDA). Due to the increased efficiency, smaller amounts of the haptens were satisfactory for conjugation to EDA-BSA as compared to amounts for the unmodified protein. The mycotoxin-EDA-BSA conjugates were shown to be highly immunogenic in rabbits.