Evaluation of Fish Quality and Safety by Proteomics Techniques

19 pages, 1 table, 1 figureStock depletion, new trends in farming practices, the globalization of markets, and the development of novel products and production methods represent new challenges for seafood quality and safety. Fortunately, genomics, proteomics, and high-throughput microarray technologies have fundamentally changed our ability to study the molecular basis of aspects related to food authenticity, safety, and quality as well as changes induced by processing in food matrices. Furthermore, knowledge about the localization, structure, modification, function, and interactions of the proteins expressed by a genome from any tissue used as a source of food can offer precious information in order to improve its quality, safety, and nutritional properties. Although fish protein databases are still scarce, especially when compared with those available for edible plants and terrestrial animals, proteomics studies of model aquatic organisms are helping us to understand problems related to the quality and safety of seafood. The main objective of this chapter is to present a compilation of studies related to fish quality aspects by means of proteomics tools describing new perspectives and challenges for the use of proteomics-based biomarkers in the identification of the causes of quality flaws and their preventionN