Analysis of Animal-derived Foods by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) is a method of identifying different substances in a sample by combining the characteristics of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. It is mainly used in many fields such as industrial inspection, food safety, and environmental protection. Gas chromatography has a strong separation ability. Mass spectrometry has unique identification ability and high sensitivity to unknown compounds. Therefore, GC-MS is one of the most powerful tools for separating and detecting complex compounds. When the power and the carrier gas are not consumed, the real-time acquisition function provides data acquisition of full scan and selected ion scan, and accurate qualitative and quantitative result data can be obtained.

Melamine Analysis in Animal-derived Food

GC-MS method for the determination of melamine in animal-derived foods was optimized by using internal standard quantification and degreasing treatment of high fat content samples, eliminating the interference of complex matrices and avoiding the occurrence of false positives.

Jiao et al. ultrasonically extract melamine from high fat content animal-derived foods, degrease the extract, and then derivatize with a silylating agent to form a stable product. The internal standard method is used for quantitative determination of melamine in the sample by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The experimental results are accurate, reliable and sensitive, and are consistent with the international quantitative and confirmatory detection of melamine in animal-derived foods.

Sodium Fluoroacetate Analysis in Milk:

Yiu-Tung Wong et al. determine the sodium fluoroacetate in milk and milk powder by GC-MS/MS. In order to improve the sensitivity and accuracy of the determination results, they establish a 3-nitroaniline derivatization method. The treated sample is subsequently tested using GC-MS/MS.

Fig. Sample preparation procedurefor the determination of MFA¹

The LOQs for milk and milk powder samples are 0.0042 μg/L and 0.0085 μg/ kg, respectively. Derivatization methods are frequently used in the detection of GC-MS, which is a common method for sample preparation. This experiment proves that sample pretreatment with 3-nitroaniline derivatization improves the sensitivity and accuracy of the assay compared to other methods.

Antioxidants and Preservatives Analysis in Meat Products

GC-MS in the detection of meat products are fast, simple and practical with low detection limit and wide linear range. In the US Department of Agriculture regulations on food additives in meat products, the use of GC-MS for the detection of preservatives and antioxidants in meat products is required. Tang et al. established a GC-MS method for the simultaneous determination of three antioxidants and seven preservatives in meat products. The pretreatment of samples is acidi?ed with hydrochloric acid and extracted with ethyl ether. Then the samples are analyzed by GC-MS (electron impact ion source). A good linear relationship in the concentration range of 2 to 1000 mg/L with correlation coef?cient above 0.999 is found for all 10 analytes. The limits of detection for all 10 analytes range from 0.2 to 0.8 mg/kg, and their average recoveries from spiked samples vary from 89.6% to 97.8%. The use of GC-MS for the detection of samples provides an effective method for the simultaneous determination of preservatives and antioxidants in meat products.

References

• Wong, YT. (2018) ‘Ultra-trace determination of sodium ?uoroacetate (1080) as mono?uoroacetate in milk and milk powder by GC-MS/MS and LC-MS/MS’, Journal Citation Reports, 10 (28): 3514-3524.

• JAYATHLAKAN K, SHARMA G K, RADHAKRISHAN K, et al. (2007)’Antioxidant potential of synthetic and natural antioxidants and its effect on warmed-over-flavour in different species of meat’, Food Chemistry, 105(3): 908-916.

• Guixian Hu, Xiaomin Xu, Hu Zhang, Yuwei Yuan, (2016) ‘Fast Determination of Sodium Monofluoroacetate in Liquid Milk and Dairy Powder by Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid Chromatography-Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry.’ Food Analytical Methods, 9(10), 2741–2748.

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