It is difficult to verify meat species in highly-processed foods that have insufficient intact DNA. One approach is to test and interpret protein patterns. This is far from straightforward.
A recent paper (here – purchase required) describes an advancement. The authors used gel-eluted liquid fraction entrapment electrophoresis (GELFrEE) to separate heat-stable peptide markers, rather than proteins, prior to measurement by MALDI-ToF-MS. They report this “peptideomics” as easier to interpret than proteomics. GELFrEE fractionation has been previously used for microbial proteins and clinical samples but rarely applied to meat speciation. It is analogous to SDS-PAGE but protein/peptide fraction are collected in the solution phase at the end of the run. It enables large sample loadings (max. 5.0 mg/strip) improving sensitivity for low-concentration markers with a dynamic range from 3.5-500 kDa and is suitable for automation. The authors discriminated pork/waterbuffalo in heat-processed mixes down to 0.5% w/w.
Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash
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