Identification of Biomarkers of Horse Muscle Tissue Using Proteomic Strategy

Proteomic analysis of horsemeat detected protein fractions, which were located on two-dimensional electrophoregram over a wide range of molecular masses and isoelectric points. The majority of the revealed proteins possessed molecular masses from 10 to 95 kDa. More than 130 protein fractions were detected, for which the proteomic profiles were similar to those of beef. Mass-spectrometric characteristics of seven horse proteins, in particular, the myosin light chains (MLC) and the tropomyosin proteins were obtained. Several proteins of MLC family in combination with tropomyosin proteins can be considered to be biomarkers, useful in analyzing raw meat and meat products containing horsemeat.