Uniform Orientation of Biotinylated Nanobody as an Affinity Binder for Detection of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Cry1Ac Toxin

Nanobodies are the smallest natural fragments with useful properties such as high affinity, distinct paratope and high stability, which make them an ideal tool for detecting target antigens. In this study, we generated and characterized nanobodies against the Cry1Ac toxin and applied them in a biotin-streptavidin based double antibodies (nanobodies) sandwich-ELISA (DAS-ELISA) assay. After immunizing a camel with soluble Cry1Ac toxin, a phage displayed library was constructed to generate Nbs against the Cry1Ac toxin. Through successive rounds of affinity bio-panning, four nanobodies with greatest diversity in CDR3 sequences were obtained. After affinity determination and conjugating to HRP, two nanobodies with high affinity which can recognize different epitopes of the same antigen (Cry1Ac) were selected as capture antibody (Nb61) and detection antibody (Nb44). The capture antibody (Nb61) was biotinylated in vivo for directional immobilization on wells coated with streptavidin matrix. Both results of specificity analysis and thermal stability determination add support for reliability of the following DAS-ELISA with a minimum detection limit of 0.005 μg·mL(−1) and a working range 0.010–1.0 μg·mL(−1). The linear curve displayed an acceptable correlation coefficient of 0.9976. These results indicated promising applications of nanobodies for detection of Cry1Ac toxin with biotin-streptavidin based DAS-ELISA system.