Abstract
Lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs) are widely used for rapid food safety screening analysis. Thanks to simplified protocols and smartphone readouts, LFIAs are expected to be increasingly used on-site, even by non-experts. As a typical follow-up in EU regulatory settings, suspect samples are sent to laboratories for confirmatory analysis by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). However, re-analysis by LC-MS/MS is laborious and time-consuming. In this work, an identification LFIA (ID-LFIA) approach followed by quadrupole-orbitrap MS or triple quadrupole MS/MS analysis is presented. As a proof of concept, a dedicated ID-LFIA strip was developed for the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) following its initial screening by a commercial smartphone LFIA. The ID-LFIA strip can be simply immersed in the same sample extract used for the smartphone LFIA screening, and next, DON is retrieved from the monoclonal antibody with a dissociation solution consisting of methanol/ammonia. The solution thus obtained was analyzed directly in MS in order to rapidly confirm the presence of DON and any cross-reacting species. The protocol developed is capable of coping with severe ion suppression caused by LFIA buffers and nitrocellulose substrate residues. Initial analysis of blank, spiked, and incurred samples showed that the newly developed ID-LFIA-MS method was able to confirm the presence or absence of mycotoxins in the samples previously analyzed by LFIA and also differentiate between DON and DON 3-glucoside yielding the positive screening result. The concept and technique developed are envisaged to complement on-site screening and confirmation of any low molecular weight contaminant in future food control frameworks.Graphical abstract
Highlights
The EU General Food Law stipulates that in order to reassure safety within the food and feed chain, producers are responsible for conducting all necessary tests so that their products comply with the legislation
A significant drawback of Lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs) is that the antibodies used can only recognize a specific part of the molecule, identifying groups of molecules, and making them unable to differentiate between molecules of similar physicochemical
A simplified direct analysis of an LFIA with MS was developed allowing the rapid identification of low molecular weight analytes previously screened suspect by regular or smartphone-based LFIAs
Summary
The EU General Food Law stipulates that in order to reassure safety within the food and feed chain, producers are responsible for conducting all necessary tests so that their products comply with the legislation. Regulatory authorities perform inspections to reassure compliance with the current. LFIAs are widely used for on-site screening, with many applications reported, such as the detection of antibiotic residues, mycotoxins, or allergens [6,7,8]. Despite their extensive usage, a significant drawback of LFIAs is that the antibodies used can only recognize a specific part of the molecule, identifying groups of molecules, and making them unable to differentiate between molecules of similar physicochemical
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