Analytical approaches for the characterization and quantification of nanoparticles in food and beverages.

Estimating consumer exposure to nanomaterials (NMs) in food products and predicting their toxicological properties are necessary steps in the assessment of the risks of this technology. To this end, analytical methods have to be available to detect, characterize and quantify NMs in food and materials related to food, e.g.

6-Plex microsphere immunoassay with imaging planar array detection for mycotoxins in barley.

Mycotoxins are produced by fungi as secondary metabolites. They often multi-contaminate food and feed commodities posing a health risk to humans and animals. A fast and easy to apply multiplex screening of these commodities could be useful to detect multi-contamination.

Receptor-based high-throughput screening and identification of estrogens in dietary supplements using bioaffinity liquid-chromatography ion mobility mass spectrometry.

A high-throughput bioaffinity liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (BioMS) approach was developed and applied for the screening and identification of recombinant human estrogen receptor α (ERα) ligands in dietary supplements. For screening, a semi-automated mass spectrometric ligand binding assay was developed applying (13)C2, (15) N-tamoxifen as non-radioactive label and fast ultra-high-performance-liquid chromatography-electrospray ionisation-triple-quadrupole-MS (UPLC-QqQ-MS), operated in the single reaction monitoring mode, as a readout system. Binding of the label to ERα-coated paramagnetic microbeads was inhibited by competing estrogens in the sample extract yielding decreased levels of the label in UPLC-QqQ-MS.

Single-laboratory validation of a multiplex flow cytometric immunoassay for the simultaneous detection of coccidiostats in eggs and feed.

Coccidiostats are authorized in the European Union (EU) to be used as poultry feed additives. Maximum (residue) levels (M(R)Ls) have been set within the EU for consumer and animal protection against unintended carry-over, and monitoring is compulsory. This paper describes the single-laboratory validation of a previously developed multiplex flow cytometric immunoassay (FCIA) as screening method for coccidiostats in eggs and feed and provides and compares different approaches for the calculation of the cut-off levels which are not described in detail within Commission Decision 2002/657/EC.