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Meat Authentication: A New HPLC–MS/MS Based Method for the Fast and Sensitive Detection of Horse and Pork in Highly Processed Food
journal contribution
posted on 2015-12-17, 04:52 authored by Christoph von Bargen, Jens Brockmeyer, Hans-Ulrich HumpfFraudulent blending of food products
with meat from undeclared
species is a problem on a global scale, as exemplified by the European
horse meat scandal in 2013. Routinely used methods such as ELISA and
PCR can suffer from limited sensitivity or specificity when processed
food samples are analyzed. In this study, we have developed an optimized
method for the detection of horse and pork in different processed
food matrices using MRM and MRM3 detection of species-specific
tryptic marker peptides. Identified marker peptides were sufficiently
stable to resist thermal processing of different meat products and
thus allow the sensitive and specific detection of pork or horse in
processed food down to 0.24% in a beef matrix system. In addition,
we were able to establish a rapid 2-min extraction protocol for the
efficient protein extraction from processed food using high molar
urea and thiourea buffers. Together, we present here the specific
and sensitive detection of horse and pork meat in different processed
food matrices using MRM-based detection of marker peptides. Notably,
prefractionation of proteins using 2D-PAGE or off-gel fractionation
is not necessary. The presented method is therefore easily applicable
in analytical routine laboratories without dedicated proteomics background.