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Advances in Food and Biological Samples Analysis

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A special issue of Separations (ISSN 2297-8739).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 March 2022) | Viewed by 14966

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Sonia Sentellas

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Guest Editor

1. Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Chemistry, University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
2. Serra Húnter Lecturer, Generalitat de Catalunya, 08007 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: liquid chromatography; capillary electrophoresis; mass spectrometry; ion mobility; metabolism; bioanalysis; pharmaceutical analysis; metabolomics; food analysis; chemometrics; sample treatment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Maykel Hernández-Mesa

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Guest Editor

Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Campus Fuentenueva s/n, E-18071 Granada, Spain
Interests: food safety; risk analysis; metabolomics; mass spectrometry; ion mobility spectrometry
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. David Moreno-González

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Guest Editor

Analytical Chemistry Research Group, Department of Physical and Analytical Chemistry, University of Jaén, Campus las Lagunillas s/n, 23071 Jaén, Spain
Interests: food safety; mass spectrometry; dielectric barrier discharge ionization; capillary electrophoresis; liquid chromatography

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The interest of society in topics related to health and quality of life has clearly increased in recent years. In this context, the development of new analytical strategies to isolate, purify, and determine the analytes of interest are of great relevance for food and biological sample characterization. The analysis of foodstuffs contributes to determining their quality and authenticity, which can be related to nutritional and toxicological issues, which are currently of special concern for consumers. Regarding biological samples, the determination of both endogenous and exogenous compounds in matrices such as plasma, urine, etc. may provide information about the health status of individuals. In addition, drug analysis is essential during drug development in order to acquire the knowledge required to ensure efficacy and safety.

Dr. Sonia Sentellas
Dr. Maykel Hernández-Mesa
Dr. David Moreno-González
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Separations is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Food analysis
Quality and authenticity
Bioanalysis
Metabolomics

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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26 pages, 1761 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

LC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS Profiling and Antioxidant Activity of Phenolics from Custard Apple Fruit and By-Products

by Junxi Du, Biming Zhong, Vigasini Subbiah, Colin J. Barrow, Frank R. Dunshea and Hafiz A. R. Suleria

Separations 2021, 8(5), 62; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/separations8050062 - 09 May 2021

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4416

Abstract

Custard apple is an edible fruit grown in tropical and subtropical regions. Due to its abundant nutrient content and perceived health benefits, it is a popular food for consumption and is utilized as a medicinal aid. Although some published research had provided the phenolic compound of custard apple, the comprehensive phenolic profiling of Australian grown custard apple is limited. Hence, this research aimed to evaluate the phenolic content and antioxidant potential by various phenolic content and antioxidant assays, followed by characterization and quantification of the phenolic profile using LC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS and HPLC-PDA. African Pride peel had the highest value in TPC (61.69 ± 1.48 mg GAE/g), TFC (0.42 ± 0.01 mg QE/g) and TTC (43.25 ± 6.70 mg CE/g), followed by Pink’s Mammoth peel (19.37 ± 1.48 mg GAE/g for TPC, 0.27 ± 0.03 mg QE/g for TFC and 10.25 ± 1.13 mg CE/g for TTC). African Pride peel also exhibited the highest antioxidant potential for TAC (43.41 ± 1.66 mg AAE/g), FRAP (3.60 ± 0.14 mg AAE/g) and ABTS (127.67 ± 4.60 mg AAE/g), whereas Pink’s Mammoth peel had the highest DPPH (16.09 ± 0.34 mg AAE/g), RPA (5.32 ± 0.14 mg AAE/g), ^•OH-RSA (1.23 ± 0.25 mg AAE/g) and FICA (3.17 ± 0.18 mg EDTA/g). LC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS experiment successfully characterized 85 phenolic compounds in total, encompassing phenolic acids (20), flavonoids (42), stilbenes (4), lignans (6) and other polyphenols (13) in all three parts (pulp, peel and seeds) of custard apple. The phenolic compounds in different portions of custard apples were quantified by HPLC-PDA, and it was shown that African Pride peel had higher concentrations of the most abundant phenolics. This is the first study to provide the comprehensive phenolic profile of Australian grown custard apples, and the results highlight that each part of custard apple can be a rich source of phenolics for the utilization of custard apple fruit and waste in the food, animal feeding and nutraceutical industries. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Food and Biological Samples Analysis)

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12 pages, 1317 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid Chromatography to Characterize Nutraceuticals and Food Supplements Based on Flavanols and Related Compounds

by Oscar Vidal-Casanella, Kevin Arias-Alpizar, Oscar Nuñez and Javier Saurina

Separations 2021, 8(2), 17; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/separations8020017 - 09 Feb 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3010

Abstract

Purified extracts from different types of berries and medicinal plants are increasingly used as raw materials for the production of nutraceuticals and dietary supplements, mainly due to their high content in bioactive substances. This is, for instance, the case of phenolic compounds such as flavonoids, which exhibit a wide range of beneficial properties, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antineoplastic and antimicrobial activities. This paper tackles the characterization of several kinds of nutraceuticals based on hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) with fluorescence detection (FLD). The study focused on the determination of flavanols and related compounds such as condensed tannins. Analytes were recovered by solvent extraction using methanol:water:hydrochloric acid (70:29:1 v:v:v) as the extraction solvent under sonication for 30 min at 55 °C. Experimental design with response surface methodology was used to optimize the HILIC separation to achieve good resolution of the main components, using acetonitrile:acetic acid (99:1 v/v) (solvent A) and methanol:water:acetic acid, (95:3:2 v/v/v) (solvent B) as the components of the mobile phase. For the assessment of the elution gradient, factors under study were solvent B percentage and gradient time. The best conditions were achieved with 10% solvent B as the initial percentage and 30 min of linear gradient to reach 25% solvent B. Principal component analysis and partial least square-discriminant analysis were used to characterize and compare the compositional features of dietary supplements based on both targeted and non-targeted approaches. Results revealed that the sample distribution relied on the oligomeric nature of descriptors. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Food and Biological Samples Analysis)

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9 pages, 217 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development and Application of an ICP-AES Method for the Determination of Nutrient and Toxic Elements in Savory Snack Products after Autoclave Dissolution

by Natalia Manousi and George A. Zachariadis

Separations 2020, 7(4), 66; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/separations7040066 - 26 Nov 2020

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 2733

Abstract

In this study, a method for the determination of trace elements in snacks using inductively coupled plasma–atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) is presented. The examined elements were Pb, Ni, Cr, Cu, Mg, Zn, Fe, Al, Ba, Ca, Co, Mn and Cd. Under the optimized conditions, digestion of 300 mg of the snack samples was performed by the addition of 5 mL of nitric acid in a Teflon autoclave and by heating the obtained mixture at 120 °C for 75 min. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed protocol, method linearity, accuracy precision, limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantification (LOQs) were evaluated. The relative standard deviations (RSD%) for all elements were lower than 13.5%, demonstrating that the method offered good precision. The relative recoveries values (R%) ranged between 80–120%, demonstrating that the method offered good accuracy. The LODs for all the trace elements ranged between 0.18 and 3.75 μg g⁻¹, while the LOQs ranged between 0.60 and 12.50 μg g⁻¹. Finally, the proposed protocol was implemented for the analysis of a wide variety of savory snack samples including commercial snacks from corn, potato chips, popcorns, puffed rice cake and crackers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Food and Biological Samples Analysis)

Review

Jump to: Research

14 pages, 10438 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperEditor’s ChoiceReview

Ion Mobility–Mass Spectrometry for Bioanalysis

by Xavier Garcia, Maria del Mar Sabaté, Jorge Aubets, Josep Maria Jansat and Sonia Sentellas

Separations 2021, 8(3), 33; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/separations8030033 - 16 Mar 2021

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3980

Abstract

This paper aims to cover the main strategies based on ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) for the analysis of biological samples. The determination of endogenous and exogenous compounds in such samples is important for the understanding of the health status of individuals. For this reason, the development of new approaches that can be complementary to the ones already established (mainly based on liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry) is welcomed. In this regard, ion mobility spectrometry has appeared in the analytical scenario as a powerful technique for the separation and characterization of compounds based on their mobility. IMS has been used in several areas taking advantage of its orthogonality with other analytical separation techniques, such as liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, or supercritical fluid chromatography. Bioanalysis is not one of the areas where IMS has been more extensively applied. However, over the last years, the interest in using this approach for the analysis of biological samples has clearly increased. This paper introduces the reader to the principles controlling the separation in IMS and reviews recent applications using this technique in the field of bioanalysis. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Food and Biological Samples Analysis)

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