Abstract:

Meat fraud, adulteration, and adding ingredients without labeling are all illegal behaviors, which bring potential
emotional and physical damage to the consumers. In this study, a proteomic method of species-specific marker peptides
of five common meats was developed. Biomarker peptides were identified, and then through qualitative analysis, speciesspecific
peptides of lamb adulterated with duck were verified by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. A selective
reaction monitoring (SRM) method was developed that allowed for the detection of 0.5% duck in a lamb matrix with a
good linear relationship for 1%, 5%, 10%, 20% and 50% blending. The method proved to be robust, reliable, and sensitive,
representing a serious alternative to methods based on biomarker peptides.

Key words: high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS), meat adulteration, peptide identification, duck, lamb