Food allergy is a major concern for public health and food industries. Because of
the large numbers of food ingredients to be tested, MS is considered an alternative
to existing techniques in terms of high selectivity, sensitivity, and capability to
analyze multiple allergens simultaneously. In this study, we developed the method
for monitoring significant peptides derived from 13 food allergens (milk, eggs, cod,
shrimp, lobster, almonds, brazil nuts, cashew nuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, peanuts, wheat,
and soybeans) and evaluated it in thermally processed foods (bread, cookie, fried
fish, and frozen pasta). To select significant peptides to monitor, we used a bioinformatics-based
approach and experimental confirmatory analysis. It was demonstrated that the developed
method could detect target food ingredients from thermally processed foods successfully.
