| Abstract: | An enzyme-linked immunoassay has been developed to differentiate between unprocessed beef, sheep, horse, kangaroo, pig and camel meats. Microtitre plates were coated with meat extracts at pH 5.5 and the bound meat proteins reacted with species-specific rabbit antisera. The antisera were prepared by inoculating rabbits with serum from the required species and were purified by affinity chromatography on appropriate immobilised serum columns to remove cross-reacting antibodies. Rabbit anti-bodies bound to the meat proteins were detected using staphylococcal protein A conjugated to horse-radish peroxidase. The assay is able to detect contamination as efficiently as the currently employed Ouchterlony immunodiffusion test. In addition it has the following advantages: (a) testing can be performed in approximately 3 h; (b) less volume of species-specific antisera is required; (c) antisera can be mixed for simple screening procedures; (d) equipment is avilable to semi-automate the assay procedure and the recording and reporting of results; (e) increased sensitivity, in the terms of amount of material required, allows use of simpler sampling techniques. |
