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There is a raising demand for sensitive and high throughput MS based methods for screening purposes especially tailored to the detection of allergen contaminants in different food commodities. A challenging issue is represented by complex food matrices where the antibody-based kits commercially available might encounter objective limitations consequently to epitope masking phenomena due to a multitude of interfering compounds arising from the matrix. The performance of a method duly optimized for the extraction and simultaneous detection of soy, egg and milk allergens in a cookie food matrix by microHPLC-ESI-MS/MS, is herein reported. Thanks to the innovative configuration and the versatility shown by the dual cell linear ion trap MS used, the most intense and reliable peptide markers were first identified by untargeted survey experiment, and subsequently employed to design an ad hoc multi-target SRM method, based on the most intense transitions recorded for each selected precursor peptide. A sample extraction and purification protocol was optimized also including an additional step based on sonication, which resulted in a considerable improvement in the detection of milk allergen peptides. Data Dependent™ Acquisition scheme allowed to fill out a tentative list of potential peptide markers, which were further filtered upon fulfilling specific requirements. A total of eleven peptides were monitored simultaneously for confirmation purposes of each allergenic contaminant and the two most sensitive peptide markers/protein were selected in order to retrieve quantitative information. Relevant LODs were found to range from 0.1μg/g for milk to 0.3μg/g for egg and 2μg/g for soy., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In this work, we show how an extensive and fast quantification of the main components in green coffee oil can be achieved by NMR, with minimal sample manipulation and use of organic solvents. The approach is based on the integration of characteristic NMR signals, selected because of their similar relaxation properties and because they fall in similar spectral regions, which minimizes offset effects. Quantification of glycerides, together with their fatty acid components (oleic, linoleic, linolenic and saturated) and minor species (caffeine, cafestol, kahweol and 16-O-methylcafestol), is achieved in less than 1h making use of (1)H and (13)C spectroscopy. The compositional data obtained are in reasonable agreement with classical chromatographic analyses., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

A sensitive and accurate method employing a single stage high resolution mass spectrometer equipped with a high-energy collision-dissociation cell (HCD) for the simultaneous determination of deoxynivalenol (DON), T-2 toxin (T-2) and HT-2 toxin (HT-2) in a processed bread model food has been developed. Two sample pre-treatment routes for the extraction of these mycotoxins were investigated, based on Mycosep(®) column clean up or QuEChERS-like procedure, respectively. The former approach suffered less from matrix effects and allowed to achieve in bread samples LODs of 7, 12 and 17 ng/g for T-2, HT-2 and DON, respectively, with 0.5 ppm mass accuracy. Two acquisition modes, full scan MS and all ion fragmentation, exploiting the fragmentation features offered by an HCD chamber and integrated within the Orbitrap analyser, were compared for quantitative purposes. The method was applied to investigate the degradation of these mycotoxins during bread processing using a bread model food. Most T-2 hydrolyzed to HT-2 during dough preparation, and about 20-30% of HT-2 and DON was degraded during bread baking., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)