The solutions that are traditionally used for gluten extraction still need major improvements; UGES has been developed to cover all the details that needed an upgrade.
Detecting gluten from food is immensely important for celiac patients, to see if the product they are consuming is gluten-free or not.
Extracting gluten in food is the first step to detecting gluten, but it’s a hard thing to do. Why? The traditional extraction methods that exist are quite difficult and also need improving in some ways.
Historically there are two solutions for extraction that are mainly used. The conventional solution is an aqueous ethanol solution (60%-70% ethanol) and then there is the Mendez Cocktail.
Both of these do their job, but maybe not as well as they should.
For instance, the first solution named is ineffective for heat-processed samples. The second one contains harmful substances (guanidine hydrochloride and 2-mercaptoethanol), and also has a disagreeable odor. Even more importantly, it is not compatible with competitive ELISA assays.
Even though the Mendez solution has several limitations, it is still the official recommended method.
Because of these reasons, improvements in gluten extraction have been urgently needed. After making the conclusion that there are far too many problems with the existent solutions, Biomedal started investigating about new solutions that solve the problems of the existing ones. Researchers focused on competitive formats, improving extraction methods, and the detection of relevant gluten peptides.
Not only did Biomedal have to find a new solution, but also prove that this new solution solves all the existent problems. Biomedal started to do some research on all these methods, and started creating the new and harmless solution called Universal Extraction Solution (UGES) with the aim to reduce toxicity and increase efficiency.
Once the UGES extraction solution was developed, it was tested along with aqueous ethanol and the Mendez cocktail against samples from commercial food, beverages and other products that contain gluten like some cosmetics. The three extraction solutions were compared, employing different techniques such as ELISA Sandwich R5, that uses R5 antibody, and a specific gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) with G12 and also A1 antibody.
Many different aspects were taken into account to test all of these extraction solutions: a) heat treatment is critical for effective extraction in complex/heath processed samples b) The effect of time and temperature c) type of samples (simple ingredients such as flour or complex food matrix like honey corn pops).
In what aspects is UGES solution more efficient than the extraction methods normally used?
- Suitable for heat-processed samples
- Suitable for competitive ELISA Methods
- Useful extraction for simple and complex samples
- Does not contain harmful substances or disagreeable odors
- Eco-friendly
After testing the different aspects, the study clearly demonstrated that the effect of extraction procedure depends strongly on the type of sample. In this sense UGES has the best ability to extract from both simple and complex food matrix showing a clear improvement in the procedure.
The UGES solution is new for people that have not heard of it before, but Biomedal has already included it in many of their products such GlutenTox Pro, GlutenTox Home, GlutenTox ELISA Competitive, GlutenTox ELISA Sandwich and GlutenTox Sticks Plus.
GlutenTox Pro, the rapid and user-friendly kit, uses the UGES solution and it is already AOAC certified (Lic. Number 061502).
