Food allergy is a considerable heath problem, as undesirable contaminations by allergens during food production are still widespread and may be dangerous for human health. To protect the population, laboratories need to develop reliable analytical methods in order to detect allergens in various food products. Currently, a large majority of allergen-related food recalls concern bakery products. It is therefore essential to detect allergens in unprocessed and processed foodstuffs. In this study, we developed a method for detecting ten allergens in complex (chocolate, ice cream) and processed (cookie, sauce) foodstuffs, based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS). Using a single protocol and considering a signal-to-noise ratio higher than 10 for the most abundant multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) transition, we were able to detect target allergens at 0.5 mg/kg for milk proteins, 2.5 mg/kg for peanut, hazelnut, pistachio, and cashew proteins, 3 mg/kg for egg proteins, and 5 mg/kg for soy, almond, walnut, and pecan proteins. The ability of the method to detect 10 allergens with a single protocol in complex and incurred food products makes it an attractive alternative to the ELISA method for routine laboratories.

食品过敏是一个严重的健康问题，因为食品生产过程中过敏原产生的不良污染仍然很普遍，可能对人体健康构成威胁。为了保护人口，实验室需要开发可靠的分析方法，以检测各种食品中的过敏原。当前，大多数与过敏原有关的食品召回与烘焙产品有关。因此，必须检测未加工和已加工食品中的过敏原。在这项研究中，我们开发了一种基于超高效液相色谱-串联质谱（UHPLC-MS / MS）检测复杂食品（巧克力，冰淇淋）和加工食品（曲奇，调味酱）中十种过敏原的方法。使用单个协议并考虑到最丰富的多反应监测（MRM）过渡的信噪比高于10，我们能够检测到目标过敏原，乳蛋白为0.5 mg / kg，花生蛋白为2.5 mg / kg ，榛子，开心果和腰果蛋白，鸡蛋蛋白为3 mg / kg，大豆，杏仁，核桃和山核桃蛋白为5 mg / kg。该方法能够通过一种简单的方法检测复杂的和已产生的食品中的10种过敏原，从而使其成为常规实验室ELISA方法的一种有吸引力的替代方法。