Commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) are commonly used by food industry for validating removal of allergenic residue from food contact surfaces and detection of allergenic residue in finished products.  ELISAs are the method of choice due to their specificity, sensitivity, and ease of use in an industrial setting, however, limited validation of ELISA kits has been conducted on food matrices that have undergone thermal processing.  This is important to note when selecting a commercial milk ELISA for monitoring allergenic residues as several variations in formats (qualitative and quantitative assays), specificity (detection of total milk protein, casein, or beta-lactoglobulin), sensitivity, and reporting units (NFDM, skim milk powder, casein, beta-lactoglobulin) exist.  Milk proteins can be differentially affected by thermal processing thus limiting detection and affecting overall risk-assessment decisions.  The effects of common processing techniques (boiling, baking, frying, retorting, and UHT) on detection of milk residue using commercial ELISAs will be discussed.

Processing effects on food allergens

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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