AOAC focus on allergen testing
The latest issue of the Journal of AOAC International features a special section consisting of four papers on food allergen testing. This includes new guidance which has been drawn up by an AOAC International taskforce for the validation of commercially available ELISA allergen testing kits.
The papers featured in the section include the following contributions:
"Analytical Testing as a Tool for the Enforcement of Future Regulatory Thresholds for Food Allergens," by Carmen Diaz-Amigo and Bert Popping. This paper describes the difficulties of establishing the correlation between clinical allergic reactions and analytical results, as well as the advantages and limitations of current and emerging analytical techniques.
"Validation Procedures for Quantitative Food Allergen ELISA Methods: Community Guidance and Best Practices," by Michael Abbott, Stephen Hayward, William Ross, Samuel Benrejeb Godefroy, Franz Ulberth, Arjon J. Van Hengel, James Roberts, Hiroshi Akiyama, Bert Popping, Jupiter M. Yeung, Paul Wehling, Steve L. Taylor, Roland Ernest Poms, and Philippe Delahaut. This paper, by an international expert group, gives guidance to kit manufacturers in order to harmonize validation of ELISA assays for allergen detection.
"Differentiating Cross-Reacting Allergens in the Immunological Analysis of Celery (Apium graveolens) by Mass Spectrometry," by Christiane K. Fæste, Karen R. Jonscher, Louis Sit, Jelena Klawitter, Kjersti E. Løvberg, and Lena H. Moen. This paper describes the problem of identifying and quantifying celery in processed samples. "Determination of Allergenic Egg Proteins in Food by Protein-, Mass Spectrometry-, and DNA-Based Methods," by Ji-Yun Lee and Chang Jong Kim. This paper compares ELISA, PCR, and MS technologies in the detection of protein in egg.
An informative introduction article by Bert Popping and Michael Abbott (Journal of AOAC International Vol 93(2) pp. 432-433) is available for free download at: www.atypon-link.com/AOAC/doi/abs/10.5555/jaoi.93.2.432
