The BIOKITS Allergen DNA Selection Module offers food analysts a unique approach for verifying the declaration, on food product labels, of the presence of allergens. Minute amounts of peanut, soya and milk are capable of inducing allergic reactions, which in rare cases can result in death. Confidence in your results is paramount and assured using this highly specific BIOKITS test where rigorous design of the reagents has ensured optimum performance.
The critical issue of food allergens has risen in prominence since November 2003 when Directive EC 2003/89 was adopted into legislation in Europe. This is an amendment to EC Directive 2000/13 for ingredient declarations on foodstuffs and requires that any of 12 described potentially allergenic ingredients are labelled even if they make up less than 25% of the food product. Suitable for testing: The BioKits DNA products enable the specific detection of Peanut and Soya Lectin, and through the Beef specific mastermix the detection of cow’s milk in raw, cooked or processed foods.
Benefits of tests:
- Unique - proprietary extraction and optimised performance for food analysis
- Reliable - highly specific reagents to verify the presence of potentially lethal allergens
- Versatile - suitable for qualitative analysis of a variety of foods
Principle of the Kit:
The BIOKITS DNA Extraction (GMO & Allergen) kit enables sample extraction using Tepnel’s proprietary magnetic bead technology. It is used in combination with the BioKits Allergen Selection Module which involves amplification by PCR and detection by agarose gel electrophoresis. The Module contains a choice of allergen DNA specific PCR mastermixes, packaged as colour-coded “Pods”.
These are all-in-one mixes, requiring only the addition of template and Taq polymerase. The mastermixes are pink in colour because they contain gel loading dye which eliminates the need for a procedural step later on. Spike and control DNAs are also included to ensure the reliability of the tests. The agarose gel detection method has been simplified and the combination of high quality extraction and PCR reagents aids the interpretation of results for the detection of peanut, soya and cow’s milk.
