IMR Press / FBE / Volume 16 / Issue 1 / DOI: 10.31083/j.fbe1601004
Open Access Review
Fluorescence Polarization Assays for Organic Compounds in Food Safety
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1 Chemical Department, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia
*Correspondence: eremin_sergei@hotmail.com (Sergei Eremin)
Front. Biosci. (Elite Ed) 2024, 16(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.fbe1601004
Submitted: 6 October 2023 | Revised: 28 November 2023 | Accepted: 15 December 2023 | Published: 31 January 2024
Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Elevated concentrations of toxic organic compounds observed in food products pose serious dangers to human health. Both natural and artificial pollutants can cause food contamination. The stages of food production, packaging, transportation, and storage can also largely cause the appearance of undesirable substances in food products. The health consequences of ingesting food containing toxic contaminants range from mild gastroenteritis to deaths resulting from dysfunctional internal organs and neurological syndromes. The World Health Organization (WHO) sets recommendations for the content of such chemicals in food, including a minimum allowable concentration considered safe for human consumption. However, the control of food products from chemical pollutants is necessary. Moreover, fast, sensitive, and inexpensive methods are needed to detect them at the point of need. Currently, immune analysis methods are most widely used to determine pollutants in food. The development of fluorescence polarization immunoassay (FPIA) methods in a competitive format is a powerful and modern tool for detecting organic molecules in various matrices, thereby making FPIA methods useful for food safety applications. Due to the availability of portable devices for measuring the fluorescence polarization signal, FPIA methods can be used at the point of need. The variety of fluorescent labels and recognizing elements (receptors, monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, and nanobodies) permits fluorescence polarization (FP) assays to detect significantly lower limits of organic substances. The FP assay is a homogeneous, fast, and quantitative method. The development of various formats of FP assays makes them promising in determining food pollutants. This review summarizes publications on FP analyses for detecting organic contaminants (pesticides, hormones, toxins, antibiotics, and other pharmaceuticals) in food products during 2018–2023. Further, it demonstrates the prospects for using this method to determine pollutants at the point of need and for detecting high molecular weight substances, fungi, and bacterial infections during food safety inspections.

Keywords
fluorescence polarization
food contamination monitoring
nanotechnology
point-of-need sensors
pesticides
mycotoxins
antibiotics
phthalates
Funding
123032300028-0/Lomonosov Moscow State University
Figures
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