Identification of Animal Species in Meat Products Using Chemometrics-Based High-Performance Liquid Chromatography: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Ensuring accurate meat species identification and animal authentication in meat products is crucial for promoting fair trade and empowering consumers to make informed decisions. Concerns about food fraud have grown due to significant financial and trust-related consequences. Chromatographic techniques combined with chemometrics are widely used in the food industry to confirm the origin and authenticity of food products. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is highly sensitive and can accurately identify meat metabolites and lipids. This systematic review focuses on analytical methods for the quantification and authentication of meat products. Data were collected from authoritative databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed between January 2014 and February 2023. The review examines the use of LC-MS to identify the nature and origin of food. Studies demonstrate the high efficiency of LC-MS due to advanced techniques for extraction, concentration, and identification, enabling the separation and identification of trace amounts with high accuracy and specificity. Identifying peptide markers is crucial for developing these methods. LC-MS/MS stands out for its accuracy in detecting food adulteration, relying on the reliability of proteotypic peptides unique to the animal species used as food. The large amount of data generated during mass spectrometry necessitates the use of chemometric methods to analyze LC-Q-TOF data. The combination of LC-Q-TOF and chemometrics has become a powerful tool for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of food ingredients. The results indicate that LC-MS/MS proteomics tools effectively identify and specify species markers in various food types, including meat, delivering accurate and statistically robust results.

Keywords: Adulteration, Meat products, Chemometrics, Liquid chromatography