Comprehensive overview and recent advances in proteomics MS based methods for food allergens analysis

Food allergies are a serious health concern with increasing worldwide prevalence. Food legislation in place in several countries, requires detailed declaration of allergens in foods implying capability of methodologies to reliably trace food allergens. However, detecting and quantifying food allergens remains a challenge. Current common methods for food allergen analysis utilize antibody-based assays although some drawbacks are encountered such as matrix/processing effects and epitope masking especially when dealing with complex and processed foods. Therefore, sensitive, reliable, robust, fast, reproducible, and standardized methods are necessary for improved allergen analysis and reduce the risk of allergen contamination. In the last decade, mass spectrometry (MS) techniques have been developed and applied with success to food allergen detection. This review compares different aspects of food allergen quantification using advanced MS techniques including multiple reaction monitoring. The latter provides low limits of quantification for multiple allergens in complex food matrices, while being robust and reproducible.