title: Meat authentication: a new HPLC-MS/MS based method for the fast and sensitive detection of horse and pork in highly processed food.
abstract: Fraudulent 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 MRM(3) 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.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Chemistry, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster , Corrensstrasse 45, 48149 Münster, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: von Bargen
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brockmeyer
authors.forename: Hans-Ulrich
authors.initials: HU
authors.lastname: Humpf
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D006736:Horses; D008461:Meat Products / Q000032:analysis*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013552:Swine; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*
keywords: MRM; MRM3; halal; marker peptides; mass spectrometry; meat authentication; tryptic digest