Commercial ELISA kits for soy protein determination: Characterization and compatibility

抄録

Soy protein has been approved in Japan as a Food for Specified Health Uses to lower serum cholesterol. A foreign-made soy protein ELISA kit has been proposed for quantifying soy protein levels. However, acquisition of this foreign-made product is time-consuming, making the product inconvenient for soy protein quantification in Japan. Therefore, as possible alternatives, we evaluated two commercial domestic ELISA kits, both of which quantify soy protein and specific allergens for food-allergen labeling. In this study, we compared antibody reactivity and soy protein levels in soy milk using these three types of ELISA kits (one foreign-made and two domestic ELISA kits). Per the results, we found that commercial domestic ELISA kit-derived soy protein levels could be converted to the soybean protein levels obtained from the foreign-made soy protein ELISA kit, through multiplication by specific factors.