Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Αναλυτική ΧημείαLibrary of the School of Science
Supervisors info:
Χρίστος Κόκκινος, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Χημείας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Original Title:
Ανάπτυξη ηλεκτροχημικού ανοσοαισθητήρα για την ανίχνευση νοθείας αιγοπρόβιου τυριού με αγελαδινό γάλα
Translated title:
Development of an electrochemical immunosensor for fraud detection in goat cheese with cow milk
Summary:
Adulteration at the food industry is of great importance since it affects not only
consumers’ health but also the quality of the product. Especially for the dairy industry,
adulteration of milk and its products pose a threat both to consumer that are lactose
intolerant or allergic to milk (bovine milk allergy is by far the most common) and to
consumers that for religious and societal reasons avoid to consume specific animals’
dairy products. According to both the European Union and USA legislation, food
industries are obliged to indicate the species origin of the milk used for food preparation
in order to protect consumers that are prone to allergies. Nowadays, there are a number
of analytical techniques and methods employed in order to determine the adulteration of
milk and its products. While their results are adequate, these methods require very
expensive instrumentation, highly skilled scientists in order to perform the analysis and
also are time-consuming. In order to overcome these drawbacks, through this M.Sc.
thesis an electrochemical immunosensor for the detection of goats’ and ewes’ cheese
adulteration with bovine cheese has been developed. The proposed sensor is cheap,
doesn’t require highly trained personnel for its operation and the analysis is rapid. To
achieve this, a competitive ELISA method for the detection of adulteration in goats’ and
ewes’ milk and cheese was developed in 96-well microtiter plates. For this method, an
anti-bovine-κ-casein specific polyclonal antibody developed in rabbits was used. After
careful optimization of the conditions and solutions, the method was transferred for
implementation at the electrochemical immunosensor. The reactions’ conditions were
optimized again and the resulting analysis took up 5 min and an LOD of 0.07% (w/w)
and an LOQ of 0.22% (w/w) were achieved. These results are below the legal limit in
the European Union which places a 1% (w/w) limit to determine if a cheese is
adulterated.
Main subject category:
Science
Keywords:
ELISA, electrochemical immunosensor, goats’ and ewes’ cheese, adulteration
