Microcantilever resonator arrays for immunodetection of beta-lactoglobulin milk allergen

The incidence of allergic disease is globally increasing so much that food allergy is actually considered as one of the main diseases of civilization, as well as among the major costs for healthcare worldwide. In such a scenario, the recent legislations introduced from European Union to protect consumers drastically drive the need for rapid, sensitive, and robust techniques to detect allergens within foodstuffs. We here report on an innovative immunorecognition method for β-lactoglobulin milk allergen detection, based on microcantilever resonator arrays, a promising class of biosensors. An original sandwich assay that uses the same polyclonal antibody as capture and secondary immunorecognition agent was proposed to overcome the low affinity of the simple direct method. The developed immunoassay showed better Limit Of Detection (LOD) and Limit Of Quantification (LOQ) than commercial ELISA plates, even after an aging of four months. To our knowledge, this work represents the first example in the literature of successfully immunodetection of milk allergens in low concentrations by microcantilever resonator arrays, thus opening new perspectives on alternative diagnostic tools for milk allergens screening tests.