Food Diagnostics
Project leader: Markus Vehniäinen M.Sc.
Researchers: Janne Leivo M.Sc.,Tuomas Huovinen, M.Sc., Hanna Sanmark M.Sc.
New bioaffinity methods are developed for the use in food industry sector that offer wider screening capacity in one assay and higher sample throughput and robustness compared with traditional methodology. The assays are developed for the analysis of markers linked with consumer safety, namely residues of illegal growth promoters like fluoroquinolones and toxic chemical residues such as paralytic shellfish poisons in mussels and trichothecenes in crop.
Antibody engineering is utilized for obtaining unique, family-specific antibodies able to recognize a class of chemical contaminants. The properties of antibody engineering technology include potential for extraordinary diversity of recognition, high affinity and specificity towards the target, and a stability well-suited to in vitro applications.1 This work is a part of the EU-project "BioCop2", which aims to develop fast screening technologies to supply regulators, consumers and industry with long-term solutions to the complex problems associated with chemical contaminant monitoring. Coordination of BioCop work package 4 "Binding materials" is handled by Department of Biotechnology.
Previously assays have been developed for the analysis of markers linked with animal welfare (e.g. stress indicator creatine-kinase), final product quality (e.g., off-odours caused by androsenone and 3-methylindole) and consumer safety (residues of illegal growth promoters like zeranol3, sulphonamides4 and trenbolone and other chemical residues such as coccidiostat compounds).
---------------------------------
1 Eriksson S., Vehniäinen M., Jansén T., Meretoja V., Saviranta P., Pettersson K., and Lövgren T. (2000). Dual-label time-resolved immunofluorometric assay of free and total prostate-specific antigen based on recombinant Fab fragments. Clin Chem 46:658-66.
2 www-page for EU project BioCop
3 Tuomola M., Cooper K.M., Lahdenperä S., Baxter G.A., Elliott C.T., Kennedy D.G., Lövgren T. (2002). A specificity-enhanced time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay for zeranol employing the dry reagent all-in-one-well principle. Analyst 127:83-86.
4 Korpimäki T., Hagrén V., Brockmann E.C., and Tuomola M. (2004). Generic lanthanide fluoroimmunoassay for the simultaneous screening of 18 sulfonamides using an engineered antibody Anal Chem 76.3091-8.