The use of metabonomics to uncover differences between the small molecule profiles of eggs from cage and barn housing systems

Metabonomic techniques have been used to observe differences in the small molecule profiles of chicken eggs, to work towards the detection, and thus prevention, of fraud regarding the misrepresentation of egg farming systems. High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Quadrupole-Time-of-Flight-Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-Q-ToF-MS) was used to obtain profiles of the small molecules found in the yolks of eggs that were laid by hens in enriched cage systems, and in barn systems. Statistical analysis of these small molecule profiles, including the use of XCMS Online and multivariate statistics, was able to uncover differences between the yolks of cage and barn eggs. Several unidentified compounds were found to be present in significantly different abundances between cage and barn egg yolks and one of these compounds was tentatively identified, through the use of METLIN, as 1,2-dipalmitoyl-glycero-3-phosphocholine

The Use of Liquid Chromatography Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry and Metabonomic Profiling to Differentiate Between Normally Slaughtered and Dead On Arrival Poultry Meat

Metabonomic profiling techniques, with established quality control methods, have been used to detect subtle metabolic differences in tissue that could aid in the discovery of fraud within the food industry. Liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-Q-TOF-MS) was utilized to acquire metabolic profiles of muscle, heart, and liver tissue from normally slaughtered and dead on arrival chickens. A workflow including XCMS Online for data processing and robust confirmatory statistics was used in order to differentiate between the two sample types. It was found that normally slaughtered and dead on arrival chicken can be differentiated based on the metabolic profile and multivariate analysis. Markers were found to be significantly different between the two sample types in all samples. With the use of the METLIN database and MS/MS analysis of chemical standards, sphingosine was identified as a marker in the muscle tissue samples which may offer potential for the detection of fraudulently processed chicken meat. The approach taken in this work has shown that it is possible to apply the described workflows to food fraud problems, with an objective of identifying key markers that could be investigated further to determine their usefulness for fraud detection