Oral Presentation 24th Annual Lorne Proteomics Symposium 2019

Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry: a new tool for rapid screening of detailed composition data in food (#26)

Alastair B Ross 1 , Sara Stead 2 , Paul Middlewood 1 , Stefan Clerens 1
  1. AgResearch, Lincoln, N/A, New Zealand
  2. Waters Corporation, Wilmslow, N/A, United Kingdom

Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS) is a relatively new sample introduction method for mass spectrometry, based on direct detection of metabolites in vaporised solid or liquid samples. Data acquisition typically takes a few seconds, meaning that potential sample throughput can be very high. We have assessed the capabilities of REIMS with a quadrupole-high resolution mass spectrometer for food analysis across a wide range of food matrices including fruit, dairy products and meat. Our work with REIMS found that we could differentiate between food products from different production systems and between similar foods from different geographic origins, based on the REIMS fingerprint. REIMS is a promising new approach for using mass spectrometry-based metabolomics to do deep compositional analysis or ‘foodomics’ on a wide range of food matrices.