LiU iGEM’s vision is to develop a biosensor system for the private consumer. This system would detect the Ara h allergen and give an easily interpretable result, thus making it simple to analyze food and drink for potential peanut content. Being able to detect peanut protein in consumable goods would allow the allergic individual to avoid ingesting it and thereby completely evade an allergic reaction.

We believe that our device will be of great use for all nut allergic individuals in everyday life but also from those who for example travel abroad and are unsure whether or not their food contains peanuts. Miscommunication or bad labeling is an extremely unnecessary reason to end up in a potentially life threatening situation. Therefore, by providing the individual a chance to scan their food for peanuts, we will give them the security that they deserve.

To detect the FRET effect we will need an apparatus which can excite FITC and at the same time detect FRET between FITC and RFP.

Our aim is to build a very small fixed wavelength spectrophotometer with good performance to a relative low cost.

The excitation energy will come from a LED source and only wavelengths between 480-500 nm will pass a short band pass optical filter with a peak maximum at 488 nm. This overlaps very precisely with the excitation peak for FITC. This light hits the sample cuvette and makes FRET (länk till biology eller typ fret eller något) happen between the complexes. The now red-shifted photons emitted from RFP will pass another filter, which only lets red light through, and hits a calibrated Si-photodiode detector. This will give an output that can be read by a microcontroller, in our case an Arduino.

If ara h 1 protein is available the antibodies will bind the protein instead of the RFP-complex and thus give a reduction or extinction of FRET. This will be measured with the Si-detector as very little or no photons will pass the second optical filter. The signal will be reduced and a red LED lamp on the top of the detector will shine, indicating that peanut protein is present in the sample. If the sample does not contain any peanut protein a green LED will indicate this instead.