Advances in LC/MS for Food Safety Testing

Outbreak investigations and routine screening play a central role in combating foodborne illness. Together, these efforts help identify new contaminants, new food vehicles, and unsuspected holes in the food safety net. They also help deepen the scientific understanding of how contamination occurs at specific points in the food supply chain, identify any likelihood that it may occur again, and plan ways to reduce or prevent it.

The number of components that must be monitored on the farm-to-table pathway will continue to increase, while allowable levels of contamination will continue to decrease. Food safety technologies will have to continue to advance their capacity to screen for more contaminants in less time and in easy-to-use formats. There will also be more requirements for general unknown screening or for identifying and measuring unexpected contaminants. This will require assays with high throughput, high sensitivity, and advanced tools to identify unknown or unexpected contaminants.

LC/MS/MS plays an important role in detecting threats to the food supply and in deepening our understanding of potentially harmful contaminants. As new technology advances are made, this versatile platform will continue play a greater role in protecting the global food supply.

Schreiber and Sims are technical marketing managers for food safety and environmental testing at AB Sciex. Reach Sims at (508) 383-7824.

References

1. United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC estimates of foodborne illness in the United States: 2011 estimates. Available at: www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/2011-foodborne-estimates.html. Accessed January 30, 2011.
2. United States Food and Drug Administration. Food Safety Modernization Act: putting the focus on prevention. Available at: www.foodsafety.gov/news/fsma.html. Accessed January 30, 2011.
3. Von Czapiewski K, Voller A, Schlutt B, Schreiber A. Tech note: simultaneous analysis of 14 mycotoxins and 163 pesticides in crude extracts of grain by LC-MS/MS. AB Sciex.
4. Anastassiades M, Lehotay SJ, Stajnbaher D, et al. Fast and easy multiresidue method employing acetonitrile extraction/partitioning and “dispersive solid-phase extraction” for the determination of pesticide residues in produce. J AOAC Int. 2003;86(2):412-431.
5. Martos PA, Thompson W, Diaz GJ. Multiresidue mycotoxin analysis in wheat, barley, oats, rye and maize grain by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. World Mycotoxin J. 2010;3(3):205-223. Available at: http://wageningenacademic.metapress.com/content/nlv525p0123q1557. Accessed January 30, 2011.
6. AB SCIEX. Press Release: U.S. Food and Drug Administration selects AB SCIEX to provide mass spectrometry systems for food contaminant testing. October 20, 2010. Available at: www.absciex.com/Company/News-Room/US-Food-and-Drug-Administration-Selects-AB-SCIEX-to-Provide-Mass-Spectrometry-Systems-for-Food-Contaminant-Testing. Accessed January 30, 2011.