Proteomics in detection of contaminations and adulterations in agricultural foodstuffs

Proteins are essential components of our diet and are found in almost all foodstuffs. Food proteomics is a broad term used to describe technological and methodological approaches used to characterize protein constituents of a particular food product. In recent years, incremental advances in mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics have resulted in the development of robust, sensitive, and versatile analytical tools that can be used to describe safety, quality, traceability, and originality of different food products. Interestingly, MS-based proteomics has now become the method of choice for rapid, targeted, and cost-effective analysis of foodstuffs of different origin for possible adulteration and contamination. In addition, proteomics has well-performed in characterization of allergen proteins in foodstuffs as well as in safety assessment of processed food products in terms of the presence of food allergens, food-borne microbes or microbial toxins. In this chapter, we will review achievements obtained by proteomics with an especial emphasis on the sensitivity and detection limit of currently-available MS-based proteomics approaches used for the detection of food contaminations and adulterations.