Sciex allergen screening method gets initial AOAC backing
It is the first mass spectrometry (MS)-based method to receive First Action Official Method (FAOM) classification from AOAC’s Official Methods Board (OMB) for allergen screening.
The method uses liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to analyze food products (raw and baked) by detecting signature peptides specific to each allergen.
It can detect allergenic peptides from five classes of allergenic foods at a detection limit of 10 ppm in a variety of matrices.
“Traditional methods such as ELISA and PCR for allergen analysis come with several challenges, including detection accuracy in processed products or the costliness of testing for several allergens in the same sample,” said Dr Bert Pöpping of FOCOS Consulting.
“LC-MS/MS has the potential to overcome these challenges, which is just one reason why it is being adopted by multiple governments and private laboratories for allergen detection.”
AOAC will now do a two-year assessment of the method, which uses the QTRAP 4500 LC-MS/MS System. If performance satisfies the review panels, AOAC will make a recommendation to the OMB for Final Action Method status.
Sciex said the ability to identify multiple allergens at once from different food types and advanced peptide signature detection reduces the chance of false negative and false positive results.
“As the food industry’s regulatory requirements continually change, the analytical workload of food testing labs increases, often leading to compromises in the accuracy of results,” said Mark Cafazzo, director of academic and applied markets at Sciex.
