Importance of Immuno-Diagnostics Techniqes for Recognition of Fraudulent Substitution in Meat Food

Species substitution during meat food production results from economic fraud or negligence which not only leads to unwanted disrespect of religious rules, but can also have harmful health effects. Adulteration of meat involves substitution of costly or superior quality with cheaper, undesirable or inferior quality meat. It is necessary to assure the wholesomeness of meat to the public, which besides other measures may necessitate the authentic identification of species of meats and could be applied to the control of poaching and illegal trade in animal products. The Immunological or Serological methods, which could be used for meat differentiation, are based on the principle that a reaction between soluble antigen and its corresponding specific antibody in appropriate proportion yields a visible precipitate at the point of their interaction. Precipitation or ring test; antigen is over-layered on to antiserum contained in a test tube which now becomes obsolete because precipitate often diffuses in a short period of time. Double immuno-diffusion (DID) test is performed in wells punched in agarose which; produces the interaction of antigen and antiserum in homologous precipitation lines. DID is easy and cheap test for identification of raw or heated meat at 80°C for less than 10 minutes, but it could detect adulteration up to 5 per cent. Single radial immuno-diffusion (SRID) test is based on serum albumen content in meat extract, which have Immunological species specificity of more far superior than the globulin fraction.