Allergy Amulet, 600 Suffolk Street, Suite 268, Lowell, MA, 01854A, USA.
Sci Rep. 2021 Oct 21;11(1):20831. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-00241-6.
Food allergies are estimated to affect about 2-5% of adults and 6-8% of children, globally. Currently, the most effective strategy for food allergy management is stringent avoidance of the offending allergen. Unlike other major food allergens, soy is uniquely challenging to avoid due to its prevalence and insidiousness in a wide variety of foods, such as infant formulas. Recently, we demonstrated a simple, accurate, and consumer-friendly sensor using molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for rapid detection of soy allergenic tracers in complex food matrices at clinically relevant levels. In this work, we build on these findings by subjecting MIP-based soy allergen sensors to test trials in 42 different food products, representing over 300 ingredients. Foods were selected based on their compositional complexity to capture a wide range of preparatory methods and processing conditions. In each case, the Allergy Amulet correctly reported on the presence or absence of soy allergen tracer in investigated samples and were subjected to immunoassay confirmatory analysis. The outcome of this research will help resolve persistent difficulties with commercial technologies in detecting allergenic tracers with minimal cross-interference in foods, and will give those with soy allergies the ability to easily, rapidly, and accurately identify and avoid foods with soy allergens.
据估计，全球有 2-5%的成年人和 6-8%的儿童患有食物过敏。目前，食物过敏管理最有效的策略是严格避免过敏原。与其他主要食物过敏原不同，由于大豆在各种食物中普遍存在且具有隐匿性，如婴儿配方奶粉，因此很难避免。最近，我们使用分子印迹聚合物（MIP）开发了一种简单、准确且对消费者友好的传感器，可在临床相关水平下快速检测复杂食品基质中的大豆过敏原示踪剂。在这项工作中，我们通过将基于 MIP 的大豆过敏原传感器进行 42 种不同食品的测试试验，进一步验证了这些发现，这些食品代表了 300 多种成分。选择这些食品是基于其组成复杂性，以捕获广泛的准备方法和加工条件。在每种情况下，Allergy Amulet 都正确报告了研究样本中是否存在大豆过敏原示踪剂，并进行了免疫分析确认分析。这项研究的结果将有助于解决商业技术在检测食物中最小交叉干扰的过敏原示踪剂方面存在的持续困难，并使那些对大豆过敏的人能够轻松、快速和准确地识别和避免含有大豆过敏原的食物。
