Immunoassays for pork antigens

Consumption and handling of pork meat is strictly prohibited by certain religious and/or legal prescriptions. Pork meat may also cause allergy and food intolerance We obtained monoclonal antibodies specific to extremely heat resistant antigen of pork meat (striated muscles). The antigen, monoclonal antibodies and their combination is now under international patenting procedure.

K366 Pork EIA kit is based on two-site sandwich principle and allows to determinate a concentration of pork antigen in arbitrary units per ml (see IFU).

Heat resistance of target antigen was demonstrated using this EIA kit (see a graph below) It was shown that even heating for 15 ‘ at 250C does not destroy the antigen completely and its content is still enough to ensure nanogram range sensitivity of the immunoassay. The antigen is also extremely stable to acid, oxidative and detergent treatments which allows to use the immunoassay to monitor industrial surfaces and tubings even after sanitization. Sensitivity of K366 Pork EIA is ca. 100-500 times less than PCR in fresh meat extract, however the unique heat resistance (data not shown), however in cooked products the sensitivity may be comparable due to higher sensitivity of nucleic acid to processing.

X366Pork: rapid test for pork antigens for kitchen and field use
The combination of pork-specific monoclonal antibodies was used to construct a rapid immunochromatographic (lateral flow) test for field or kitchen use. The test shows slightly (5-7 times) less sensitivity comparing to EIA, but is easy to use and robust - please look into instruction for use. More languages, FAQs and application reports may be found on www.xematest.com

Further pork testing kits are in development – i.e. monoclonal antibodies against pork fat tissue, gelatin and blood serum.