Development of immunoassays for egg (hen’s egg and poultry egg)

Antibodies were obtained against cooked total hen’s egg extract. The specificity of the antibodies are shown below.

Antigens, fresh or cooked	Antibodies
	mouse monoclonal SV1	mouse monoclonal SV2	rabbit polyclonal AS361
Hen / egg white	++++	++++	++++
Hen / yolk	++++	++++	++++
Chicken / meat	-	+	++
Duck / egg total	-	+++	++
Quail / egg total	-	++	++
Ostrich / egg total	-	++++	++++
Pearl-hen / egg total	-	+-	++
Duck / meat	-	+	++
Quail / meat	-	+	++
Ostrich / meat	-	+	++
Pearl-hen / meat	-	+	++

Total Egg Antigen EIA (K361) is based on poly/mono antibody pair recognizes heat resistant epitopes of total hen’s egg antigen that localize both in egg white and yolk. The kit is designed for quantitative measuring in processed products.

Kit performance data:
Test principle: sandwich, poly-monoclonal antibodies
Total time of analysis: 30/30/15 min
Sensitivity: 5 U/ml (approx. matches to 0.005% w/w egg in product)
Material tested: food specimens, vaccines

Another version of EIA kit can be constructed, which may detect ALL eggs and meats of poultry birds (Poultry Egg + Meat EIA).

Estimation of Total Egg antigen quantity in various material:

Samples	Content or concentration of antigen	Comments
Total hen's egg ALLERGEN	>20000 U/ml	For skin prick test, AllergopharmaTM Titer ca. 10E4
Hen’s egg white allergen ALLERGEN	>30000 U/ml
Pasta 1	>300000 U/g	20% Egg of dry weight
Pasta 2	< 10 U/g	Labelled as egg free
Pasta 3	14000 U/g	Includes unknown amount of egg
Pasta 4	200 U/g	Industrial experimental contamination. Lot of egg free pasta produced after pasta with egg without washing
Cake 1	20000 U/g	Includes egg
Chocolate bar 1	370 U/g	Labelled as potentially contaminated with egg

Total Egg rapid test (X361, Xematest Hen’s Egg) and Xematest Total Egg+Poultry Meat are in development, soon available for evaluation.