Determination of the animal origin of meat and gelatin by MALDI-TOF-MS

• MALDI-TOF-MS meat species determination on crude meat and culinary preparations.
• MALDI-TOF-MS gelatin origin determination in candies or galenic preparations.
• Sensitive porcine and bovine gelatin detection with various amounts.

Recent scandals in the agro-food industry highlight the necessity of increasing meat and food traceability to determine animal origin. This article presents two matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) methods that do not require complicated sample preparation. The first method concerns the determination of the origin of meat (pork, beef, horse, veal and chicken) from raw and processed meat used in culinary preparations. Samples were prepared in order to extract proteins, then analyzed with a linear MALDI-TOF-MS system. Mass spectra were computed by cluster analysis using Bruker Biotyper software. Samples representing different meat origins were efficiently separated into distinct mass spectra clusters. The second method concerns the determination of the origin of gelatin (pork or beef) in food preparations and galenic formulations. Here, gelatin was digested into peptides, themselves analyzed using a reflectron MALDI-TOF-MS system. Mass spectra enabled us to detect and distinguish pork from bovine gelatin, based on specific peak patterns. We were able to detect down to 1% of gelatin in spiked candies and detect down to 20% of pork gelatin in beef gelatin. Both techniques have potential for the systematic and routine traceability of meat and collagen.