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Lab-on-a-chip for wheat identification 
Lab-on-a-chip technology shows great promise for rapid identification of wheat varieties suitable for use at mill intake. Identification of wheat variety is of great importance to the milling industry in determining the suitability of incoming material for specific end uses. Acid polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of proteins is routinely used for such identification in analytical laboratories, but is too time consuming for use at mill intake. The suitability of the Agilent Bioanalyzer 2100/LabChip Protein Assay system and the Phoretix computerised pattern recognition software were evaluated as a more rapid alternative. The LabChip produced well resolved protein profiles, suitable for discrimination of wheat varieties, and the software was able to compare the profiles. A prototype wheat library was developed by selecting the most representative profiles of the varieties evaluated. Of the test samples in a subsequent trial, 90% could be identified within the top three matches of the library.The practicality of the method and the robustness of the system were successfully demonstrated in a trial at a commercial mill laboratory; the total analysis time of less than 50 minutes makes it most suitable for mill intake use. The optimised system will enable millers to make more confident decisions in accepting grain consignments, and could become widely adopted as an effective policing tool within the grain industry. Work is now in progress to optimise the performance of the protein profile matching system. Contact: Dhan Bhandari |