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The safety of food and feed depends to a great deal on quality control. Numerous compounds and organisms may contaminate food and feed commodities and thus pose a health risk for consumers. The compound of interest in this review is ochratoxin A (OTA), a secondary metabolite of the fungi Aspergillus and Penicillium . Due to its adverse health effects, detection and quantification are of utmost importance. Quality control of food and feed requires extraction and analysis, including TLC, HPLC, MS, and immunochemical methods. Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages. However, with regard to costs and rapidity, immunochemical methods have gained much interest in the last decade. In this review an introduction to immunochemistry and assay design will be given to elucidate the principles. Further, the application of the various formats to the detection and quantification of ochratoxin will be described, including the use of commercially available kits.

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Novel surface plasmon resonance-based biosensor assays for the bioeffect-related screening of chemicals with thyroid-disrupting activity are described. Two thyroid transport proteins (TPs), thyroxine binding globulin (TBG) and recombinant transthyretin (rTTR), were applied in an inhibition assay format in a Biacore 3000 using CM5 biosensor chips coated with l-thyroxine (T4), the main hormone of the thyroid system. Assay conditions were optimized for the natural thyroid hormones, and known thyroid disruptors and structurally related compounds were selected as model compounds to be tested in both assays for their relative potency (RP) compared to T4. The chosen compounds were halogenated phenols, halogenated bisphenols, bisphenol A, 3,5-dichlorobiphenyl, and its hydroxylated metabolite 4-hydroxy-3,5-dichlorobiphenyl (4-OH PCB 14). The TBG-based assay was highly specific for T4, and the rTTR-based assay was sensitive toward several compounds, the highest sensitivity (RP = 4.4) being obtained with 4-OH PCB 14, followed by tetrabromobisphenol A (RP = 1.5) and tetrachlorobisphenol A (RP = 0.75). For the bioeffect-related screening of known and identification of possible new thyroid disruptors, the TPs-based biosensor assays were more sensitive (IC(50) of 13.7 +/- 1.3 and 8.6 +/- 0.7 nM for the rTTR and the TBG-based assay, respectively), easier to perform, and faster alternatives (10 min/sample) than the currently used methods such as radioligand binding assays and immunoprecipitation-HPLC.