Sumaia Abdullah Alsadi
Dubai Central Laboratory, UAE
Title: Gelatin speciation and porcine determination in food/capsules by LC-MS/MS
Biography
Biography: Sumaia Abdullah Alsadi
Abstract
Gelatin has many applications in the food, pharmaceutical and nutritional industries supported by its excellent properties and functionalities. Gelatin is a mixture of polypeptides obtained by hydrolysis of collagen primarily from bovine and porcine skin and bones. Since gelatin can be derived from different animal species, the source of authentication is necessary for products containing gelatin due to religious (Muslim halal, Jewish kosher) or health reason. The similarity between different gelatins makes it difficult to trace their species origin. We at Dubai Central Laboratory developed and validated a fast, robust and reliable method for differentiation between bovine and porcine gelatin based on detection and identification of marker peptides in digested gelatins. Porcine was extracted from an aliquot of pharmaceutical capsules, marshmallow and other food matrices using simple extraction technique and injected into a Liquid Chromatograph equipped with a Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LCMS/ MS) detector using the Multiple Reaction Monitoring (MRM). The validated method demonstrates acceptable performance and is suitable for the determination of porcine gelatin in pharmaceutical capsules, marshmallow and other food matrices over the concentration range of 0.25% to 100.00%. This will help alleviate ethical concerns of the source of gelatin used in food manufacturing and pharmaceutical capsules used to deliver drugs. The overall impact of the analysis will help to ensure public health and safety, which is one of the strategic plans of Dubai Municipality.