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Food authentication and origin traceability are popular research topics, especially as concerns about food quality continue to increase. Mass spectrometry (MS) plays an indispensable role in food authentication and origin traceability. In this review, the applications of MS in food authentication and origin traceability by analyzing the main components and chemical fingerprints or profiles are summarized. In addition, the characteristic markers for food authentication are also reviewed, and the advantages and disadvantages of MS-based techniques for food authentication, as well as the current trends and challenges, are discussed. The fingerprinting and profiling methods, in combination with multivariate statistical analysis, are more suitable for the authentication of high-value foods, while characteristic marker-based methods are more suitable for adulteration detection. Several new techniques have been introduced to the field, such as proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry, ambient ionization mass spectrometry (AIMS), and ion mobility mass spectrometry, for the determination of food adulteration due to their fast and convenient analysis. As an important trend, the miniaturization of MS offers advantages, such as small and portable instrumentation and fast and nondestructive analysis. Moreover, many applications in food authentication are using AIMS, which can help food authentication in food inspection/field analysis. This review provides a reference and guide for food authentication and traceability based on MS.

AIM Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignancy associated with a poor prognosis due to difficulties in reliably estimating overall survival (OS). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play critical roles in HCC initiation, progression, and metastasis and are highly correlated with patient prognosis. Thus, miRNA-based risk signatures and nomograms are urgently required for predicting OS in patients with HCC. METHODS We constructed a 13-miRNA-based signature and prognostic nomogram using 408 HCC samples and 58 normal tissues with miRNA sequencing data and clinical data from 323 patients downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas. A total of 195 patients were assigned as the internal validation cohort for verification and testing. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis was applied to investigate pathway enrichment for the signature. RESULTS We identified and validated a 13-miRNA risk signature highly associating with the OS of HCC patients. The signature showed good performances by calculating C-index, area under the curve, and calibration curves. After verification and testing using an internal validation cohort, the results yielded a miRNA-based signature and a prognostic nomogram with reliable predictive accuracy. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis indicated that various genes and multiple pathways were closely related to the mechanisms of HCC proliferation and metastasis. CONCLUSION We successfully identified a 13-miRNA-based signature and prognostic nomogram that are capable of predicting OS in patients with HCC.

The ever-growing global threats to human life caused by the human acute respiratory virus (RV) infections have cost billions of lives, created a significant economic burden, and shaped society for centuries. The timely response to emerging RVs could save human lives and reduce the medical care burden. The development of RV detection technologies is essential for potentially preventing RV pandemic and epidemics. However, commonly used detection technologies lack sensitivity, specificity, and speed, thus often failing to provide the rapid turnaround times. To address this problem, new technologies are devised to address the performance inadequacies of the traditional methods. These emerging technologies offer improvements in convenience, speed, flexibility, and portability of point-of-care test (POCT). Herein, recent developments in POCT are comprehensively reviewed for eight typical acute respiratory viruses. This review discusses the challenges and opportunities of various recognition and detection strategies and discusses these according to their detection principles, including nucleic acid amplification, optical POCT, electrochemistry, lateral flow assays, microfluidics, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and microarrays. The importance of limits of detection, throughput, portability, and specificity when testing clinical samples in resource-limited settings is emphasized. Finally, the evaluation of commercial POCT kits for both essential RV diagnosis and clinical-oriented practices is included.

Nowadays, consumers are concerned about the toxicological implications and in a great demand for more information about the presence of organic residues and contaminants in vegetable oils. Pesticide residues, mycotoxins, and heavy metals can be readily accumulated in vegetable oil during the cultivation, processing and storage. Those chemical contaminants or its metabolites are carcinogenic, teratogenic, and immunotoxic, which result in serious damages to human health. With public health and economic losses considered, many analytical methods have been reported for the determination of chemical contaminants in vegetable oils. The aim of this review is to provide an update on the historical and current methods for the determination of contaminants in oil samples, discuss and evaluate the features, advantages and limitations, and finally outline the prospects for the multi-class chemical contaminants determination in vegetable oils. Practical applications: Different strategies and advantages of analytical methods for determination of chemical contaminants in vegetable oils are discussed and evaluated. The features and the prospects are useful for the development of the multi-class methodology in lipid matrix. Vegetable oils are widely used for cooking and processing in the food industry, meeting dietary demands. Major chemical contaminants, such as pesticide residues, mycotoxins, and heavy metals, are commonly found in vegetable oils. In this review, we provide an update on the historical and current methods for the determination of contaminants in oil samples, discuss and evaluate different analytical methods and techniques, and finally outline the prospects for the determination of major chemical contaminants in vegetable oils.

Biotoxin contamination in food and environmental samples has threatened health or life of human and animals. Thus, a rapid lab-independent sensing method for biotoxin determination is urgently required. Microchip sensing system allows a promising rapid and low-cost detection strategy. Herein, the recent development of various microchips, including microfluidic chip and microarray, has been discussed to sense various biotoxins in food and environmental samples (i.e. phytotoxin, animal toxin, marine toxin, and mycotoxin). Microchip can be served as both analyte transportation and sensing platform, via either labeling or labeling-free sensing strategy. Because of its fast sensing time, low sample consumption, ready portability, and high compatibility, it has been extensively employed in biotoxin determination in both academic and industrial circle. With the advances of fabrication strategies and sensing modes, the microchip performance has been dramatically improved, including sensitivity, efficiency, reliability, stability, cost saving, portability. The potential applications can be found wide spread in biotoxin sensing in the near future, while their practical application in real sample need to be addressed.

The residues of chlorophyll induce oxidative rancidity and deterioration through photo‐oxidation. However, the effect of chlorophyll on the quality of rapeseed oil is still unknown. In this study, chlorophyll is added into rapeseed oil to reach the desired treatment levels of 2, 5, and 10 mg kg⁻¹, while no chlorophyll is added in the control sample. Dynamic changes of the peroxide value of rapeseed oils with different chlorophyll contents exposed to light and stored in the dark at different times (0, 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, and 60 days) are investigated. The results show that the peroxide value of rapeseed oil exposed to light increased significantly, especially for the oil with a high content of chlorophyll. In contrast, the peroxide value of rapeseed oil stored in the dark is nearly unchanged no matter whether extra chlorophyll is added. This study shows that chlorophyll in rapeseed oil can trigger oil oxidation, and therefore it is necessary to take measures to reduce the chlorophyll content in rapeseed oil or store rapeseed oil in the dark as soon as possible. Practical Applications: This study shows that chlorophyll in rapeseed oil can trigger oil oxidation, and therefore it is necessary to take measures to reduce the chlorophyll content in rapeseed oil. In this study, dynamic changes of peroxide values of rapeseed oils with different chlorophyll contents exposed to light and stored in the dark at different times are investigated. The results show that the peroxide value of rapeseed oil exposed to light increases significantly, especially for the rapeseed oil with a high content of chlorophyll. In conclusion, chlorophyll in rapeseed oil can trigger oil oxidation.Therefore, it is necessary to take measures to reduce the chlorophyll content in rapeseed oil or store rapeseed oil in the dark as soon as possible.

Mass spectrometric techniques are essential for advanced research in food safety and environmental monitoring. These fields are important for securing the health of humans and animals, and for ensuring environmental security. Mycotoxins, toxic secondary metabolites of filamentous fungi, are major contaminants of agricultural products, food and feed, biological samples, and the environment as a whole. Mycotoxins can cause cancers, nephritic and hepatic diseases, various hemorrhagic syndromes, and immune and neurological disorders. Mycotoxin-contaminated food and feed can provoke trade conflicts, resulting in massive economic losses. Risk assessment of mycotoxin contamination for humans and animals generally depends on clear identification and reliable quantitation in diversified matrices. Pioneering work on mycotoxin quantitation using mass spectrometry (MS) was performed in the early 1970s. Now, unambiguous confirmation and quantitation of mycotoxins can be readily achieved with a variety hyphenated techniques that combine chromatographic separation with MS, including liquid chromatography (LC) or gas chromatography (GC). With the advent of atmospheric pressure ionization, LC-MS has become a routine technique. Recently, the co-occurrence of multiple mycotoxins in the same sample has drawn an increasing amount of attention. Thus, modern analyses must be able to detect and quantitate multiple mycotoxins in a single run. Improvements in tandem MS techniques have been made to achieve this purpose. This review describes the advanced research that has been done regarding mycotoxin determination using hyphenated chromatographic-MS techniques, but is not a full-circle survey of all the literature published on this topic. The present work provides an overview of the various hyphenated chromatographic-MS-based strategies that have been applied to mycotoxin analysis, with a focus on recent developments. The use of chromatographic-MS to measure levels of mycotoxins, including aflatoxins, ochratoxins, patulin, trichothecenes, zearalenone, and fumonisins, is discussed in detail. Both free and masked mycotoxins are included in this review due to different methods of sample preparation. Techniques are described in terms of sample preparation, internal standards, LC/ultra performance LC (UPLC) optimization, and applications and survey. Several future hyphenated MS techniques are discussed as well, including multidimensional chromatography-MS, capillary electrophoresis-MS, and surface plasmon resonance array-MS.

The method of headspace coupled with comprehensive two-dimensional GC–time-of-flight MS (HS-GC × GC–TOF/MS) was applied to differentiate the volatile flavor compounds of three types of pure vegetable oils (sesame oils, peanut oils, and soybean oils) and two types of adulterated oils (sesame oils and peanut oils adulterated with soybean oils). Thirty common volatiles, 14 particular flavors and two particular flavors were identified from the three types of pure oils, from the sesame oils, and from the soybean oils, respectively. Thirty-one potential markers (variables), which are crucial to the forming of different vegetable oil flavors, were selected from volatiles in different pure and adulterated oils, and they were analyzed using the principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) approaches. The samples of three types of pure vegetable oil were completely classified using the PCA and CA. In addition, minimum adulteration levels of 5 and 10% can be differentiated in the adulteration of peanut oils and sesame oils with soybean oils, respectively. Practical applications: The objective was to develop one kind of potential differentiated method to distinguish high cost vegetable oils from lower grade and cheaper oils of poorer quality such as soybean oils. The test result in this article is satisfactory in discriminating adulterated oils from pure vegetable oils, and the test method is proved to be effective in analyzing different compounds. Furthermore, the method can also be used to detect other adulterants such as hazelnut oil and rapeseed oil. The method is an important technical support for public health against profit-driven illegal activities.

In this paper, ultrasonic-assisted extraction of 3-chloropropane-1,2-diol and its esters from edible oils was studied with isotope dilution GC-MS. Effects of several experimental parameters, such as types and concentrations of extracting solvent, ratios of liquid to material, extraction temperature, time of ultrasonic treatment on the extraction efficiency of 3-chloropropane-1,2-diol and its esters from edible oils and sample preparation for calibration were compared and optimized. The optimal extraction conditions were suggested as 66 mg oil sample in mixture of 0.5 mL MTBE/ethyl acetate (20% v/v) and 0.5 mL of sulfuric acid/n-propanol (0.3% v/v), being extracted for 30 min at 45°C under ultrasonic irradiation. Good linearity was gained in the range of 0.020-5.000 μg/g with the limit of detection (LOD) of 0.006 μg/g (S/N = 3) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) of 0.020 μg/g (S/N = 10). The recoveries at five spiked concentrations were ranged from 91.9 to 109.3% with RSD less than 9.4%. The method was successfully applied to the determination of 3-chloropropane-1,2-diol and its esters amounts in rapeseed, sesame, peanut, camellia, and soybean oils.

Mycotoxin contamination in the food chain has caused serious health issues in humans and animals. Thus, a rapid on-site and lab-independent detection method for mycotoxins, such as aflatoxins (AFTs), is desirable. Microfluidic chip based immunosensor technology is one of the most promising methods for fast mycotoxin assays. In this review, we cover the major microfluidic immunosensors used for mycotoxin analysis, via flow-through (capillary electromigration) and lateral flow technology. Sample preparation from different matrices of agricultural products and foodstuffs is summarized. The choice of materials, fabrication strategies, and detection methods for microfluidic immunosensors are further discussed in detail. The sensors application in mycotoxin determination is also outlined. Finally, future challenges and opportunities are discussed.

Sesame lignans, including mainly sesamin and sesamolin, has been reported to have multiple functions beneficial to health. This study analyzed sesamin and sesamolin contents by HPLC in 215 sesame lines from a core collection in China. The results showed the core sesame germplasm in China has a broad variation from 2.49 to 18.01 mg/g with average 8.54 mg/g in total of sesamin and sesamolin. On average, sesamin contents in the lines with a white seed coat color were significantly higher than in those samples with brown, yellow and black colors (P < 0.01). The lines with a black seed coat had the highest coefficient of variation followed by those with brown, yellow and white seed coats. The correlation coefficient between sesamin and sesamolin in the sesames with different seed coat colors ranked as white (R = 0.23) < yellow (R = 0.44) < brown (R = 0.72) < black (R = 0.77). The results of this study provide valuable background information on sesame germplasm in China and identified potential genotypes for breeding high sesamin or sesamolin cultivars.

In the experiment, a high-performance liquid chromatography and electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry with selected reaction monitoring was used to simultaneously determine various classes of phytohormones, including indole-3-acetic acid, α-naphthaleneacetic acid, 2-chlorobenzoic acid, 4-chlorobenzoic acid, indole-3-butyric acid, gibberellic acid, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, 2-naphthoxyacetic acid, abscisic acid, 2,3,5-triiodobenzoic acid, uniconazole, paclobutrazol and 2,4-epibassinolide in rape tissues. The analyses were separated by an HPLC equipped with a reversed-phase column using a binary solvent system composed of methanol and water, both containing 0.1% of formic acid. The matrix effect was also considered and determined. The technology was applied to analyze rape tissues, including roots, stems, leaves, flowers, immature pods and rape seeds. The rape tissues were subjected to ultrasound-assisted extraction and purified by dispersive solid-phase extraction, and then transferred into the liquid chromatography system. The detection limit for each plant hormone was defined by the ratio of signal/background noise (S/N) of 3. The results showed perfect linearity (R(2) values of 0.9987-1.0000) and reproducibility of elution times (relative standard deviations, RSDs

To meet the needs for polymer particulates for the flooding of oil fields, a composite crosslinked copolymer of hydrophilic monomers [acrylamide (AM) and acrylic acid (AA)] and a hydrophobic monomer [methyl methacrylate (MMA)] was synthesized. In this study, we first added a rare-earth thermal stabilizer and inorganic montmorillonite (MMT) clay to the copolymer; this showed that the composite crosslinked copolymer exhibited good water-swelling performance at 200°C, with gel static grade of 5, a toughness index of 1.1170, and a salinity limit of 250,000 mg/L. It also had better injection abilities. The AM/AA/MMA ratio was 4 : 1 : 0.03 w/w, the crosslinker additive content was 0.03 wt %, the thermal stabilizer additive content was 5 wt %, and the clay (MMT) additive content was 13 wt %. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 4429–4433, 2006