Abstract
The international seafood trade is based on food safety, quality, sustainability, and traceability. Mussels are bio-accumulative sessile organisms that need regular control to guarantee their safe consumption. However, no well-established and validated methods exist to trace mussel origin, even if several attempts have been made over the years. Recently, an inorganic multi-elemental fingerprint coupled to multivariate statistics has increasingly been applied in food quality control. The mussel shell can be an excellent reservoir of foreign inorganic chemical species, allowing recording long-term environmental changes. The present work investigates the multi-elemental composition of mussel shells, including Al, Cu, Cr, Zn, Mn, Cd, Co, U, Ba, Ni, Pb, Mg, Sr, and Ca, determined by inductively-coupled plasma mass-spectrometry in Mytilus galloprovincialis collected along the Central Adriatic Coast (Marche Region, Italy) at 25 different sampling sites (18 farms and 7 natural banks) located in seven areas. The experimental data, coupled with chemometric approaches (principal components analysis and linear discriminant analysis), were used to create a statistical model able to discriminate samples as a function of their production site. The LDA model is suitable for achieving a correct assignment of >90% of individuals sampled to their respective harvesting locations and for being applied to counteract fraud.
Highlights
Fish products are a valuable source of nutrients for humans
The elements were analyzed in several mussel shells, and the obtained results were processed by chemometric tools like principal component analysis (PCA)
Some studies have focused on shell inorganic composition, because it provides a stable, long-term, site-specific marker of elements, which is strongly influenced by the environment. This specific fingerprint may be useful for geographical-origin traceability [17,18,22,23]
Summary
Fish products are a valuable source of nutrients for humans. Global consumption of seafood increased steadily from 1961 to 2017, at an annual rate of 3.1%, and aquaculture became a fundamental source of fish production, contributing up to 46% of the total fish market. Bivalve mollusks represent an inexpensive source of protein, characterized by high biological value, and providing essential minerals, trace metals, and vitamins [1]. As a result of their filter-feeding habit and sessile lifestyle, tend to accumulate substances from the surrounding environment; they may be considered as natural “devices” enabling pollution biomonitoring [2]. The international seafood trade requires food safety, quality, sustainability, and traceability standards. As a result of mussel’s bio-accumulative ability, regular control is necessary to guarantee their safe consumption [3] in compliance with Regulations (EC)
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