Discovery, verification, and validation of walnut protein marker peptides using LC-MS approaches.

Abstract

A key requirement of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based allergenic food protein analysis methods is to use protein marker peptides with good analytical performances in LC-MS analysis of commercial processed foods. In this study, we developed a multi-stage walnut protein marker peptide selection strategy involving marker peptide discovery and verification and LC-MS validation of chemically equivalent stable isotope-labeled peptides. This strategy proposed three walnut protein marker peptides, including two new marker peptides. Our LC-MS-based walnut protein analysis method using the three stable isotope-labeled peptides showed acceptable linearity (R2>0.99), matrix effects (coefficient of variation <±15%), sensitivity (limit of detection>0.3pg/μL, limit of quantification>0.8pg/μL), recovery (85.1-103.4%), accuracy, and precision (coefficient of variation<10%). In conclusion, our multi-stage marker peptide selection strategy effectively selects specific protein marker peptides for sensitive detection and absolute quantification of walnut proteins in LC-MS analysis of commercial processed foods.