The Role of Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry in Food Integrity and Authenticity

Abstract

Liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS), tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), and high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) today are among the most common techniques to guarantee food integrity and authenticity. Targeted approaches, where a family of characteristic bioactive substances in the analyzed food products are monitored, are a common practice to ensure food authenticity regarding the production region since bioactive substances content and distribution in food depend on multiple parameters such as climate conditions, water resources, agrochemical practices, etc. On the other hand, non-targeted approaches, such as metabolomic fingerprinting, are a common practice where a huge number of spectral detected variables in the analyzed foods are monitored. In both approaches, characteristic patterns are searched among the analyzed food products by means of statistical chemometric methods to address food characterization, classification, and authentication. In the present chapter, the role of LC-MS in combination with chemometrics to guarantee food integrity and authenticity will be discussed. Coverage of all kinds of applications is beyond the scope of the present contribution, so we will focus on the most relevant applications published in the last years by addressing the most interesting examples and important aspects in the food authenticity field.

Authentication of the Origin, Variety and Roasting Degree of Coffee Samples by Non-Targeted HPLC-UV Fingerprinting and Chemometrics. Application to the Detection and Quantitation of Adulterated Coffee Samples

“…Adulteration and manipulation of foods to fool final consumers is illegal worldwide, not only because of economic consequences, but also because of significant health problems. For that reason, the determination of the authenticity of the food is a very important issue in quality control and food safety [1][2][3][4].…”

High‐performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection fingerprints as chemical descriptors to authenticate the origin, variety and roasting degree of coffee by multivariate chemometric methods

“…Furthermore, the quality of natural products such as coffee is an issue of great interest in our society, which is increasingly interested in attributes such as the coffee origin and its specific variety. Therefore, it is very important to ensure proper coffee quality control, with the aim of protecting consumers from fraudulent practices, as well as ensuring that coffee beverages are fit for human consumption 1–5 …”

Classification and Authentication of Paprika by UHPLC-HRMS Fingerprinting and Multivariate Calibration Methods (PCA and PLS-DA)

“…In this software, some parameters must be set, such as the mass tolerance for peak alignment, the total intensity threshold, the maximum peak displacement, and the S/N threshold. Sometimes, these parameters eliminate chemical interferences from the matrix, but they must be properly adjusted to prevent discarding signals that may be relevant [18]. Besides, depending on the type of study being conducted, it is necessary to reduce the number of signals to simplify the matrix obtained.…”

“…Besides, depending on the type of study being conducted, it is necessary to reduce the number of signals to simplify the matrix obtained. In these cases, some actions can be taken such as removing signals that are not detected in a minimum percentage of the samples or remove signals that are not observed in the quality controls, which generally consist of a mixture of equal volumes of all the samples analyzed [18].…”