Abstract: In order to detect carminic acid（CA）content in meat product with high sensitivity and specificity，an ELISA kit for CA was prepared to detect the CA content in meat product of market sale. At the same time，the detection situation was further confirmed by high- performance liquid chromatography（HPLC）. The results showed that the dynamic range was from 7. 8 ~ 1 150 ng/mL with the limit of detection（LOD）1 ng/mL，and 50% inhibitive concentration（IC₅₀）of CA was 95. 2 ng/mL；the cross-reactivity of the PAB toward carmine was 108. 7%，and no response was found with other four edible colorants. The spiked meat samples from meat product of market sale were detected by ELISA with intra- and inter-assay recovery ranges of 79. 1% ~ 103. 1% and 81. 6% ~ 98. 8% ，respectively. The relative standard deviations of intra- and inter-assay were less than 10%. Finally，the results for the samples were further confirmed by high- performance liquid chromatography（HPLC）with a high correlation coefficient of 0. 927，these demonstrated that the method in the study was sensitive， accurate， simple and fast， the method established the technical foundation for immunological rapid detection of carminic acid.

Key words: carminic acid, enzyme linked immunosorbent assay（ELISA）, polyclonal antibody, highperformance liquid chromatography（HPLC）