Application of immunochemical assays to food analysis.

Immunochemical assays are powerful bioanalytical techniques with application to several areas in food science, including food analysis, microbiology, nutrition, food safety, food quality, and process control. In principle, immunochemical techniques can be applied to the analysis of any compound, with only one specific antibody needed that can be obtained either from laboratory animals or, when available, from commercial sources. A well-designed immunochemical assay can detect targeted compounds at levels as low as 10(-12) M. Immunochemical techniques require little or no sample pretreatment, making these analytical procedures relatively rapid. The initial cost of developing an immunoanalytical assay may be high, but when the procedure is well established, the cost per test is often a fraction of that for other analytical methods. For these reasons, immunoanalytical assays provide an attractive alternative for the food analyst who requires either inexpensive qualitative screening tests or reliable quantitative methods with a high degree of sensitivity. This review concentrates on the use of enzyme immunoassay to address analytical problems in food chemistry and the analysis of various food components.