Can commercial peanut assay kits detect peanut allergens?

ABSTRACT

Peanut is the food group mostly associated with severe and fatal allergic reactions. In the United States, more than 90% of peanut-allergic individuals' serum IgE recognized peanut proteins Ara h 1 and Ara h 2, thus establishing these proteins as major peanut allergens. The amount of Ara h 1 and Ara h 2 in 3 varieties of peanut cultivars that are commonly processed in the industrialized countries was determined to be 12-16 and 6-9%, respectively. Current commercial peanut test kits use polyclonal peanut-specific antibodies to detect soluble or buffer extractable peanut proteins. Because the 2 major peanut allergens Ara h 1 and Ara h 2 are isolated from soluble peanut proteins, it is generally assumed that these commercial kits can detect peanut allergens, although none of these kits claims to detect peanut allergen. This study showed for the first time that the peanut test kits could, in fact, detect major peanut allergens Ara h 1 and Ara h 2 in both native or heat-denatured structures; therefore, these kits qualified to be classified as peanut allergen enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays.