A Simple and Effective Mass Spectrometric Approach to Identify the Adulteration of the Mediterranean Diet Component Extra-Virgin Olive Oil with Corn Oil.
Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) with its nutraceutical characteristics substantially contributes as a major nutrient to the health benefit of the Mediterranean diet. Unfortunately, the adulteration of EVOO with less expensive oils (e.g., peanut and corn oils), has become one of the biggest source of agricultural fraud in the European Union, with important health implications for consumers, mainly due to the introduction of seed oil-derived allergens causing, especially in children, severe food allergy phenomena. In this regard, revealing adulterations of EVOO is of fundamental importance for health care and prevention reasons, especially in children. To this aim, effective analytical methods to assess EVOO purity are necessary. Here, we propose a simple, rapid, robust and very sensitive method for non-specialized mass spectrometric laboratory, based on the matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) coupled to unsupervised hierarchical clustering (UHC), principal component (PCA) and Pearson's correlation analyses, to reveal corn oil (CO) adulterations in EVOO at very low levels (down to 0.5%).
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care (IRCCS), Piazza Sant'Onofrio 4, Rome 00165, Italy. francesco.digirolamo@opbg.net.
Francesco
F
Di Girolamo
Gene Expression-Microarrays Laboratory, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care (IRCCS), Piazza Sant'Onofrio 4, Rome 00165, Italy. andrea.masotti@opbg.net.
Andrea
A
Masotti
Department of Laboratory Medicine, San Camillo Hospital, Viale Vittorio Veneto 18, Treviso 31100, Italy. Isa.Lante@gmail.com.
Isabella
I
Lante
Department of Laboratory Medicine, San Camillo Hospital, Viale Vittorio Veneto 18, Treviso 31100, Italy. scapaticci.m@gmail.com.
Margherita
M
Scapaticci
Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari "Aldo Moro", Via Orabona 4, Bari 70126, Italy. cosimadamiana.calvano@uniba.it.
Cosima Damiana
CD
Calvano
Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari "Aldo Moro", Via Orabona 4, Bari 70126, Italy. carlo.zambonin@uniba.it.
Carlo
C
Zambonin
Department of Women's and Children's Health, University of Padova, Via Giustiniani 3, Padova 35122, Italy. muraca@unipd.it.
Maurizio
M
Muraca
Parasitology Unit, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care (IRCCS), Piazza Sant'Onofrio 4, Rome 00165, Italy. lorenza.putignani@opbg.net.|Metagenomics Unit, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care (IRCCS), Piazza Sant'Onofrio 4, Rome 00165, Italy. lorenza.putignani@opbg.net.
Lorenza
L
Putignani
D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003314:Corn Oil / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D038441:Diet, Mediterranean; D005504:Food Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008055:Lipids / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D000069463:Olive Oil / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D019032:Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization
D008055:Lipids; D000069463:Olive Oil; D003314:Corn Oil
MALDI-TOF MS; corn oil; extra-virgin olive oil; mediterranean diet; phospholipids’ profiles