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Investigating Praktyka
meat adulteration

A SERIOUS ANALYTICAL CHALLENGE

Adulteration of foods, including meat products, is a world-wide problem. Analysts are working on research
methods, which would enable verification of quality and determine the authenticity of food products. Until now,
in order to determine the authenticity of meat, most frequently used techniques are those based on gel electro-
phoresis and immunosorbent assays. Equally popular became spectral techniques which enable, for instance,
detecting fraud directly through food packaging. Currently, a relatively new trend can be observed. It based on
the use of proteomics hyphenated with mass spectrometry to verify the authenticity of meat products. Detection
of specific biomarkers (proteins – strategy “top-down” or peptides – strategy “bottom-up”) allows for the differ-
entiation of the various species of meats. Mass spectrometry except that being an effective method of detecting
adulteration of food, has some limitations. Therefore, further work is underway on its improvement, for instance:
development of mobile devices, enabling food testing in the field.
Key words: adulteration of food, gel electrophoresis, immunosorbent assays, proteomics, mass spectrometry

ANALITYKA – NUMER 2, ROK (XVIII) 2017 30