Microparticle-enhanced nephelometric immunoassay for caseinomacropeptide in milk

A microparticle-enhanced nephelometric immunoassay has been developed for the determination of caseinomacropeptide (CMP) in bovine milk. It is based on the nephelometric quantification of the competitive immunoagglutination of a microparticle-CMP conjugate with an anti-κ-casein (κ-CN) antiserum. This one step immunoassay was sensitive (detection limit in reaction mixture, 16 μg/l), accurate (linear recovery of CMP in dilution overloading) and reproducible (CV 7-14% for within and between run precision). Because of the specificity of the polyclonal antiserum used, it was necessary to separate CMP from κ-CN by ultrafiltration before the quantification of bovine milk CMP. Under the conditions of milk ultrafiltration used, κ-CN was entirely retained (> 99·5%) but the concentration of CMP measured in milk ultrafiltrates was underestimated (by ∼ 25%) compared with its concentration in whole milk. Microparticle-enhanced nephelometric immunoassay of CMP, with a calibration range from 0·32 to 20 mg/1 for 20-fold diluted milk ultrafiltrate, allowed contamination of bovine milk by rennet whey as low as 5 ml/l to be detected. Applied to ultrafiltrates from milk stored at 4°C, this immunoassay also detected proteolysis of κ-CN not revealed by measurement of κ-CN concentration in milk. A statistical lower limit of 3·21 mg/l was determined as the increase in CMP concentration in milk ultrafiltrates that indicated probable κ-CN proteolysis in the milk sample. Previously demonstrated to be an easy to perform method for assaying the main proteins of bovine milk, microparticle-enhanced nephelometric immunoassay thus also appeared to be appropriate to quantify CMP so as to detect slight contamination of milk by whey and to indicate the proteolysis of κ-CN during milk storage at low temperature.