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A food safety control low mass‐range proteomics platform for the detection of illicit treatments in veal calves by MALDI‐TOF‐MS serum profiling
Author(s) -
Della Donna Lorenza,
Ronci Maurizio,
Sacchetta Paolo,
Di Ilio Carmine,
Biolatti Bartolomeo,
Federici Giorgio,
Nebbia Carlo,
Urbani Andrea
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
biotechnology journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.144
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1860-7314
pISSN - 1860-6768
DOI - 10.1002/biot.200900085
Subject(s) - proteomics , profiling (computer programming) , computational biology , microbiology and biotechnology , food science , food safety , chemistry , biology , chromatography , computer science , biochemistry , gene , operating system
Performance enhancing agents (PEAs) are illegally used in cattle and other meat producing species to increase food conversion and lean meat production. Due to the very short breeding cycle, veal calves represent the meat producing bovine category mostly subjected to illicit treatments. These chemical agents are difficult to detect by conventional analytical approaches due to the employment of synergistic formulations at very low dosage and given the use of uncharacterized novel compounds. Such a scenario has fostered a strong interest in the discovery of functional molecular biomarkers for the detection of growth promoting agents in meat producing species. A multivariate MALDI‐TOF‐MS proteomics platform has been developed using bovine serum samples. Analytical performances have been thoroughly evaluated in order to enable reproducible profiles from 10 μL sera samples. We propose univariate and multivariate discrimination models capable to identify calves undergoing illicit treatments. In particular, we found a strong discrimination power associated with a polypeptide fragment from β2‐glycoprotein‐I. We provide a fundamental proof of concept in the potential application of MALDI‐TOF‐MS proteomics profiling in the food safety control.