The outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United Kingdom in 1986, with processed animal proteins (PAPs) as the main vector of the disease, has led to their prohibition in feed. The progressive release of the feed ban required the development of new analytical methods to determine the exact origin of PAPs from meat and bone meal. We set up a promising MS-based method to determine the species and the source (legal or not) present in PAPs: a TCA-acetone protein extraction followed by a cleanup step, an in-solution tryptic digestion of 5 h (with a 1:20 protein/trypsin ratio), and mass spectrometry analyses, first without any a priori, with a Q-TOF, followed by a targeted triple-quadrupole analysis. Using this procedure, we were able to overcome some of the major limitations of the official methods to analyze PAPs, detecting and identifying prohibited animal products in feedstuffs by the monitoring of peptides specific for cows, pigs, and sheep in PAPs.

Multi-class UHPLC-MS/MS was developed for the analysis of more than 160 regulated or banned compounds of various classes: anthelmintics including benzimidazoles, avermectins and others; antibiotics including amphenicols, beta-lactams, macrolides, pyrimidines, quinolones, sulphonamides and tetracyclines; beta-agonists; corticosteroids; ionophores; nitroimidazoles; non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents; steroids; and tranquillisers. Samples were extracted with acetonitrile, without any additional purification step, and analysed by using UHPLC-MS/MS. Validation was done in accordance with the guidelines laid down by European Commission Decision 2002/657/EC for qualitative screening methods. This simple method proved applicable to routine screening for residues in egg, honey, milk and muscle samples at half the maximum concentration permitted by the European Union for each drug. In most cases, the target value was set at 5 µg kg(-1) for unauthorised compounds.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Peptide marker identification is one of the most important steps in the development of a mass spectrometry (MS) based method for allergen detection, since the robustness and sensitivity of the overall analytical method will strictly depend on the reliability of the proteotypic peptides tracing for each allergen. The European legislation in place issues the mandatory labelling of fourteen allergenic ingredients whenever used in different food formulations. Among these, six allergenic ingredients, namely milk, egg, peanut, soybean, hazelnut and almond, can be prioritized in light of their higher occurrence in food recalls for undeclared presence with serious risk decision.In this work, we described the results of a comprehensive evaluation of the current literature on MS-based allergen detection aiming at collecting all available information about proteins and peptide markers validated in independent studies for the six allergenic ingredients of interest.The main features of the targeted proteins were commented reviewing all details available about known isoforms and sequence homology particularly in plant-derived allergens. Several critical aspects affecting peptide markers reliability were discussed and according to this evaluation a final short-list of candidate markers was compiled likely to be standardized and implemented in MS methods for allergen analysis.

No abstract

Food laboratories have developed methods for testing allergens in foods. The efficiency of qualitative and quantitative methods is of prime importance in protecting allergic populations. Unfortunately, food laboratories encounter barriers to developing efficient methods. Bottlenecks include the lack of regulatory thresholds, delays in the emergence of reference materials and guidelines, and the need to detect processed allergens. In this study, ultra-HPLC coupled to tandem MS was used to illustrate difficulties encountered in determining method performances. We measured the major influences of both processing and matrix effects on the detection of egg, milk, soy, and peanut allergens in foodstuffs. The main goals of this work were to identify difficulties that food laboratories still encounter in detecting and quantifying allergens and to sensitize researchers to them.