Chapter 2 - Quantitative proteomics by mass spectrometry in food science

Abstract

Human food is a complex biological mixture whose complexity is constantly increasing with new advances in preparation and preservation processes. Therefore, the control of food processing and safety is particularly important. In the last decade, the use of “omics” techniques, such as genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics has provided a better knowledge of food both safety and quality research. Proteomics technology using different high-performance separation techniques such as the gel-based two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and one-dimensional and gel-free multidimensional chromatography, combined with high-resolution mass spectrometry has the power to monitor not only the protein composition of foods but also their changes during the production process. Moreover, in recent years, the great improvements in mass spectrometry and bioinformatics tools have allowed the quantitative techniques based on mass spectrometry to Bethe method of choice for food control. This has been made through the identification of quality biomarkers and the study of proteome expression data. The proteomics techniques in food technology are used for the characterization and standardization of raw materials, process development, and detection of batch-to-batch variations and quality control of the final product. These proteomic techniques are used to analyze different aspects of food safety, especially regarding biological and microbial hazards, and to control the use of genetically modified elements in foods preparation. This chapter overview the different proteomics techniques used in food technology with an emphasis in label-based quantitative techniques such as Isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation and sequential window acquisition of all theoretical fragment ion spectra mass spectrometry.