Proteomics for food authentication

Abstract A major aim of food science is to ensure high quality and safety of food. Methods such as genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics are emerging and helping to complement existing methodologies for ascertaining the quality and authenticating the safety and traceability of food as claimed by producers. Proteomics, an aspect of foodomics, in recent years has been applied in numerous food and food products such as gelatin, egg, milk, bioactive compounds, vaccines, nutraceuticals, and functional foods. The collection of proteins produced in these food products are analyzed with the use of different high-performance separation techniques such as one-dimensional and multidimensional chromatography, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, and high-resolution mass spectrometry, which monitor the protein composition of foods and their changes during the production process thus indicating the processes to which the food has passed through and also using it in various applications such as toxin and allergen authentication, nutritional value authentication, shelf life, and storage authentication, etc. This paper aims at studying the proteomics methods and their application in food safety, authentication, and traceability. The advantages and major setbacks of proteomics for food authentication will also be examined.