Evaluation of Three Different Sesame ELISA Methods for the Detection and Quantitation of Sesame in Foods

Sesame was recently designated as the 9th major food allergen regulated in the US by the Food Allergy Safety, Treatment, Education, and Research (FASTER) Act of 2021. FDA currently utilizes enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methods to detect and quantify allergens in foods. In this study, we evaluated commercially available sesame ELISA kits for their suitability in the detection of sesame in various foods. ELISA kits were obtained from Morinaga Institute of Biological Science, Inc., (MIoBS; Sesame ELISA Kit II), R-Biopharm® (RIDASCREEN® FAST Sesame), and Neogen® (Veratox® Sesame Allergen Quantitative Test Kit) and employed to analyze three sesame-spiked/incurred model foods (spice mix, hummus and baked muffin) by three different analysts. Hummus was analyzed on Day 1 and Day 7 after its preparation to evaluate robustness in response to storage at 4°C. MIoBS and RIDASCREEN Sesame ELISA kits demonstrated an intermediate precision between 1.8 - 27% and 13 - 27%, respectively, in all matrices, while the Veratox kit intermediate precision ranged from 3.1 - 14% for baked muffin and spice mix; but, failed to detect sesame in hummus samples due to higher LoQ value. The RIDACREEN assay over-estimated sesame content in all tested matrix samples with average recoveries ranging from 130 - 220%. The MIoBS Sesame ELISA kit demonstrated average recoveries ranging between 110 - 130% for the baked muffin and 110 - 170% for hummus, with reduced recovery between 41 - 51% in spice mix. The Veratox Sesame ELISA demonstrated high sesame recoveries up to 440% in baked muffin and 350% in spice mix. These results show that the immunochemical detection of sesame could vary based on differences in the ELISA kit platform, matrix, and allergen concentrations.