LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY-MASS SPECTROMETRY BOTTOM-UP PROTEOMIC METHODS IN ANIMAL SPECIES ANALYSIS OF PROCESSED MEAT FOR FOOD AUTHENTICATION AND THE DETECTION OF ADULTERATIONS.

This review offers an overview of the current status and the most recent advances in liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) techniques with both high-resolution and low-resolution tandem mass analyzers applied to the identification and detection of heat-stable species-specific peptide markers of meat in highly processed food products. We present sets of myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic proteins, which turned out to be the source of 105 heat-stable peptides, detectable in processed meat using LC-MS/MS. A list of heat-stable species-specific peptides was compiled for eleven types of white and red meat including chicken, duck, goose, turkey, pork, beef, lamb, rabbit, buffalo, deer, and horse meat, which can be used as markers for meat authentication. Among the 105 peptides, 57 were verified by multiple reaction monitoring, enabling identification of each species with high specificity and selectivity. The most described and monitored species by LC-MS/MS so far are chicken and pork with 26 confirmed heat-stable peptide markers for each meat. In thermally processed samples, myosin, myoglobin, hemoglobin, l-lactase dehydrogenase A and β-enolase are the main protein sources of heat-stable markers.