Detection of Allergenic Substances with MCE-202 MultiNA

Introduction

Japan is the world’s earliest adopter of a display system for foods containing allergens. In April, 2001 it become mandatory that food labels include likely allergens, and in June, 2008, two additional food articles, prawn and crab, were added to that list of likely allergens. The dissemination of allergen-related information to the consumer using this label display is meant to help avert the possibility of allergic responses and harm to health beforehand. Therefore, if specific substances are included or mixed in among the other ingredients, even at ultra small quantities, the label is required to inform the consumer to that fact. Among the allergenic substances required to be mentioned on the label, those that can be detected by qualitative PCR are wheat, buckwheat, peanuts, prawn and crab. Here we conducted amplification of allergen-related genes by PCR using extracted DNA as the template, according the method specified by The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Notification "Regarding the testing method for foods containing allergenic substances," No. 0724, Publication No. 1 issued by the Dept. of Food Safety, July 24, 2009). Here we introduce the detection of these substances using the MCE-202 MultiNA Microchip Electrophoresis System for DNA/RNA analysis.

October 16, 2014 GMT