Rapid Determination of the Geographical Origin of Honey Based on Protein Fingerprinting and Barcoding Using MALDI TOF MS

Abstract

The authentication of foods is an important aspect of quality control and food safety. Honey is one of the most natural and most popular foods in the world. A fast and reliable method to determine the geographical origin of honey was developed based on fingerprinting and barcoding of proteins in honey by using matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI TOF MS) and MALDI Biotyper 1.1 software, respectively. The protein mass spectra of 16 honey samples of known Hawaii origin were obtained and peak information was extracted to generate protein fingerprints. This information was transformed into a database library of spectral barcodes that were used for differentiation of the geographical origin of honeys based on pattern matching. The differentiation ability of the database library of barcodes was validated by comparing the results of replicate assays of 5 of the 16 honey samples of known Hawaii origin obtained directly from the producers. Validation results showed that the protein fingerprints of honeys have better comparability with those honeys in the library known to be from the same region than with those of honey samples from other regions. The protein fingerprints were used to differentiate the geographical origins of commercially purchased honey samples with labels indicating that they were produced in different countries and various states of the USA, including Hawaii. The results showed that the MALDI TOF MS Biotyper system can be a rapid, simple and practical method for determining the geographical origin of honeys sold in commerce.

HS-SPME/GC-MS and chemometrics for volatile composition of Chinese traditional aromatic vinegar in the Zhenjiang region

“…high performance liquid chromatography), and other techniques (e.g. matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry) have been employed for the determination of the geographical origin of food products (5)(6)(7)(8). Chemometric analysis of the data provided by the analytical instruments is needed for such a multifactorial approach.…”

Proteomics in Food Science

“…MS/MS-based proteomics have also been employed to detect soybean proteins added to processed meat products (Leitner et al, 2006) and for the detection of soy and pea proteins in milk powder (Cordawener et al, 2009). MALDI-TOF protein profiling was used to develop a fast method for determining the geographical origin of honey obtained from Hawaiian bees (Wang et al, 2009).…”

QA: Fraud Control for Foods and Other Biomaterials by Product Fingerprinting

“…MALDI is mainly coupled with a time-of-flight (TOF) mass analyser which separate the ions based on their flying time to the detector, which on turns depends on their m/z ratio. An example of application of MALDI-TOF-MS for authentication issues is represented by the fast method developed by Wang et al for the fingerprinting of honey proteins [15]. The mass spectra were used to build up a database library to be used for authentication purpose.…”

“…Such absorption is affected by the surroundings of the atomic nucleus so that precise information about the molecular structure of a sample can be obtained. The atomic nuclei with non-zero spin that are most frequently used in NMR are 1 H, 13 C even though 15 N, 17 O, 19 F and 31 P can be also employed.…”