Antibodies as Bioanalytical Tools in Food Analysis

With new developments in agriculture and food production in the past two decades, bioanalytical detection of toxins and allergens in foods became a challenging task. In addition, efficient validation and labelling of food products demand reliable technical approaches. Complex, heterogeneous matrices and low amounts of specific analytes complicate detection and characterization of harmful substances in food. A highly relevant tool to achieve this goal is represented by several immunochemical approaches, based on antibody technology. Different types of antibodies have been developed, which are characterized by high affinity and specificity. Although, alternative methods have been introduced into food analysis (e.g., mass-spectrometry and PCR), antibodies still play a key role, especially in detection and characterization of allergens. In this chapter, I discuss basic immunochemical methods of food analysis based on antibody technologies. The increasing importance of establishing suitable detection schemes for several allergens (e.g., allergens from peanut and soy) in an immunoanalytical approach, will be particularly emphasized.

Keywords: Antibodies, Immunoassays, Food Allergens