Contamination of food products by allergens represents a matter of concern especially for allergic consumers due to the risk of triggering an immunological reaction upon ingestion of allergen-containing foods [1]. Due to the widespread extent of such pathology, and in order to protect the health of sensitive consumers, specific legislation has been issued in different countries on the proper labeling of a restricted list of food allergens whenever added to food [2]. Besides their intentional incorporation into the commodity, a risk of accidental contamination is likely to exist. In this case allergens are defined hidden as they have not been declared on the product label and might unexpectedly reach the end products through several routes [3]. Different analytical methods have been developed in the last years for monitoring food allergen contamination along the food chain. Recently, mass spectrometry (MS) methods [1], have been considered a promising analytical strategy for f ood allergens detection thanks to the advances made in this technology that enables to overcome several restrictions of antibody-based methods, such as ELISA. Among them the risk of false positives, especially when applied to complex or processed food matrices that might cause epitope modification or masking, and the limitations in multiplexing. In the present investigation, a sensitive LC-MS method tailored to the multiplex detection of several allergenic ingredients in a processed food matrix will be described. Cookie was chosen as complex and processed food model, incurred with egg, milk, soy, hazelnut and peanut allergens. Starting from our previous investigation [4], extraction, purification and enzymatic digestion conditions were duly optimized in order to design a relatively fast and easy sample handling procedure which allowed to considerably reduce the time requested for sample preparation before LC-MS analysis. Features of two different MS instrumental set-up, also exploiting High Resolution Mass Spectrometric detection, to monitor 5 allergenic foods in complex foods will be presented. An automated on line pre-enrichment procedure onto a trap-column followed by chromatographic separation was designed enabling the pre-enrichment and partial purification of the candidate markers with challenging LODs obtained.
Speeding-up sample handling for multiplex MS detection of allergenic ingredients in processed foods
R Pilolli;E De Angelis;L Monaci
2015
Abstract
Contamination of food products by allergens represents a matter of concern especially for allergic consumers due to the risk of triggering an immunological reaction upon ingestion of allergen-containing foods [1]. Due to the widespread extent of such pathology, and in order to protect the health of sensitive consumers, specific legislation has been issued in different countries on the proper labeling of a restricted list of food allergens whenever added to food [2]. Besides their intentional incorporation into the commodity, a risk of accidental contamination is likely to exist. In this case allergens are defined hidden as they have not been declared on the product label and might unexpectedly reach the end products through several routes [3]. Different analytical methods have been developed in the last years for monitoring food allergen contamination along the food chain. Recently, mass spectrometry (MS) methods [1], have been considered a promising analytical strategy for f ood allergens detection thanks to the advances made in this technology that enables to overcome several restrictions of antibody-based methods, such as ELISA. Among them the risk of false positives, especially when applied to complex or processed food matrices that might cause epitope modification or masking, and the limitations in multiplexing. In the present investigation, a sensitive LC-MS method tailored to the multiplex detection of several allergenic ingredients in a processed food matrix will be described. Cookie was chosen as complex and processed food model, incurred with egg, milk, soy, hazelnut and peanut allergens. Starting from our previous investigation [4], extraction, purification and enzymatic digestion conditions were duly optimized in order to design a relatively fast and easy sample handling procedure which allowed to considerably reduce the time requested for sample preparation before LC-MS analysis. Features of two different MS instrumental set-up, also exploiting High Resolution Mass Spectrometric detection, to monitor 5 allergenic foods in complex foods will be presented. An automated on line pre-enrichment procedure onto a trap-column followed by chromatographic separation was designed enabling the pre-enrichment and partial purification of the candidate markers with challenging LODs obtained.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
