Immunoassay foodstuffs

Ultimately major efforts to develop coupled chromatographic techniques have been performed to alleviate the problem of manual sample pretreatment and to enhance sensitivity and selectivity in the analysis of PAHs in foodstuffs (192) and environmental samples (193-195). Liquid chromatography/MS (196,197), GC/MS (175), HPLC with UV absorbance, fluorescence (177) (see Fig. 4), or electrochemical (ED) detection (179), and ELISA immunoassay (198) have been successfully used for the determination of HAAs. 

From the standpoint of sample preparations, foodstuffs are much more complicated systems than clinical samples, which represent the other major area of application for the different techniques used in immunoassays. Food comes in many different physical forms, and very often it has undergone technological processes (physical, chemical, enzymatic. 

As made evident in Table 2, immunoassays are also in routine use for analysis of mycotoxins, a group including the most dangerous and analytically elusive food-related toxins. In spite of the small structural differences within specific groups of mycotoxins (aflatoxins, ochratoxins, trichothecenes), assay specificity toward the other mycotoxin groups is always total. Determination of AEBi, toxin T-2, and ochratoxin A in a single extract from barley grains has been reported. Mycotoxins may be determined in crude extracts of various foodstuffs at concentration over 20 ng per kg. This detection limit can... 

In other applications, proteins are adsorbed by purpose, for example, as immobilized enzymes in biosensors and bioreactors, immunoglobulins in immunoassays, drugs in drug targeting and controlled release systems, and as stabilizers of dispersions, emulsions, and foams in foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. 

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