Turkish Journal of Chemistry (2019)
Detection of lard contamination in five different edible oils by FT-IR spectroscopy using a partial least squares calibration model
Turkish Journal of Chemistry
Fazeelah Munir, Syed Ghulam Musharraf, Syed Tufail Hussain Sherazi, Muhammad Imran Malik, Muhammad Iqbal Bhanger
Lard is defined as animal fat acquired from the adipose tissue of pigs and is not permitted for human consumption or external use by certain religions such as Islam and Judaism. Due to its low-cost availability for commercial use, it is often mixed with other vegetable oils mistakenly or deliberately and causes loss of consumer trust; hence, its detection in food products is essential. Consumers tend to know the authenticity of commercially available edible oils. However, edible oils are subjected to adulteration risks with lard, which breaches consumer rights. In the present study, we designed a transmission Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR)-based method for the rapid detection of lard in sunflower, canola, coconut, olive, and mustard oils. For this purpose, the selected oils were adulterated with lard in different concentration ratios (10:0, 9:1, 7:3, 6:4, 4:6, 3:7, 0:10). A single calibration model was developed for 35 standards (seven standards from each individual five oils) in the frequency range between 1078.01 and 1246.75 cm–1 to determine the relationship between actual adulterant concentration and FT-IR predicted concentrations using a partial least squares (PLS) method. The results of the present study indicated that FT-IR in combination with PLS has the potential to evaluate adulteration of edible oils with lard through single calibration as a rapid, nondestructive, and effective alternative method. Read More…
Arabian Journal of Chemistry (2020)
Untargeted-metabolomics differentiation between poultry samples slaughtered with and without detaching spinal cord
Nasir Abbas, Arslan Ali, Sindhia Kumari, Ayesha Iqbal, Adnan Husain, Talat Saeed, Zainab AbdulAmer Al-Ballam, Nisar Ahmed, Hesham R. El-Seedi, Syed Ghulam Musharraf
Arabian Journal of Chemistry (2021)
A simple and sensitive NGS-based method for pork detection in complex food samples
Azra Akbar, Muhammad Shakeel, Sami Al-Amad, Abrar Akbar, Abdulmohsen K. Ali, Rita Rahmeh, Mohammad Alotaibi, Salwa Al-Muqatea, Syeda Areeba, Aymen Arif, Maryam fayyaz, Ishtiaq Ahmad Khan, Shakil Ahmed, Adnan Hussain, Syed Ghulam Musharraf
Food adulteration is a serious concern faced by the importers of various food products across the globe. In this study, a simple, sensitive and robust method for detecting pork in processed/complex food samples using next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS) technology is described. The experimentation involves a generalized library preparation kit for performing shotgun sequencing of the genomic DNA irrespective of its intactness. The method was applied on different complex food samples containing pork along with other species (up to twelve) as well as without pork to test the specificity of the method. The DNA sequences were mapped with the online NCBI nucleotide database for their identification followed by a calculation of the relative abundance of the reads. The adulteration of pork was correctly identified in the analyzed samples. Although the relative abundance of pork DNA reads could not make a precise quantitative relevance with the contributed amount of the tissue sample, yet this method has the potential to determine extremely low as well as high contents of adulterating/contaminating species in complex food products.Read More…
Food Chemistry (2024)
Analytical approaches for the determination of adulterated animal fats and vegetable oils in food and non-food samples
Nayab Kanwal, Syed Ghulam Musharraf
Edible oils and fats are crucial components of everyday cooking and the production of food products, but their purity has been a major issue for a long time. High-quality edible oils are contaminated with low- and cheap quality edible oils to increase profits. The adulteration of edible oils and fats also produces many health risks. Detection of main and minor components can identify adulterations using various techniques, such as GC, HPLC, TLC, FTIR, NIR, NMR, direct mass spectrometry, PCR, E-Nose, and DSC. Each detection technique has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, chromatography offers high precision but requires extensive sample preparation, while spectroscopy is rapid and non-destructive but may lack resolution. Direct mass spectrometry is faster and simpler than chromatography-based MS, eliminating complex preparation steps. DNA-based oil authentication is effective but hindered by laborious extraction processes. E-Nose only distinguishes odours, and DSC directly studies lipid thermal properties without derivatization or solvents. Mass spectrometry-based techniques, particularly GC-MS is found to be highly effective for detecting adulteration of oils and fats in food and non-food samples. This review summarizes the benefits and drawbacks of these analytical approaches and their use in conjunction with chemometric tools to detect the adulteration of animal fats and vegetable oils. This combination provides a powerful technique with enormous chemotaxonomic potential that includes the detection of adulterations, quality assurance, assessment of geographical origin, assessment of the process, and classification of the product in complex matrices from food and non-food samples.Read More…
Food Chemistry (2024)
Methods for detection and quantification of gelatin from different sources
Mahjabeen Hassan, Dilshad Hussain, Tehreem Kanwal, Hua-Ming Xiao, Syed Ghulam Musharraf
Gelatin is a water-soluble protein obtained from the collagen of various animal origins (porcine, bovine, fish, donkey, horse, and deer hide) and has diverse applications in the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries. Porcine and bovine gelatins are extensively used in food and non-food products; however, their acceptance is limited due to religious prohibitions, whereas fish gelatin is accepted in all religions. In Southeast Asia, especially in China, gelatin obtained from donkey and deer skins is used in medicines. However, both sources suffer from adulteration (mixing different sources of gelatin) due to their limited availability and high cost. Unclear labeling and limited information about actual gelatin sources in gelatin-containing products cause serious concern among societies for halal and fraud authentication of gelatin sources. Therefore, authenticating gelatin sources in gelatin-based products is challenging due to close similarities between the composition differences and degradation of DNA and protein biomarkers in processed gelatin. Thus, different methods have been proposed to identify and quantify different gelatin sources in pharmaceutical and food products. To the best of our knowledge, this systematic and comprehensive review highlights different authentication techniques and their limitations in gelatin detection and quantification in various commercial products. This review also describes halal authentication and adulteration prevention strategies of various gelatin sources, mainly focussing on research gaps, challenges, and future directions in this research area.Read More…
Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy (2023)
A rapid colorimetric method for the detection of carminic acid in samples based on visible color change
Azra Akbar, Amna Jabbar Siddiqui, Syed Tarique Moin, Muhammad Noman Khan, Ali Raza, Adeeba Khadim, Muhammad Usman, M. Iqbal Choudhary, Syed Ghulam Musharraf
Carminic Acid (CA), an insect-derived red color, is widely used as a colorant and additive in food and non-food items. The detection of CA is of great concern since it is unacceptable for vegetarians and vegans consumers. Therefore, it is important for food authorities to have a rapid detection method for CA. We describe here a simple and rapid method for the qualitative detection of CA, using Pb2+ for complex formation. As a result, the sample solution shows a visible change from pink to purple (bathochromic shift) which could also be analyzed through a spectrophotometer at λmax = 605 nm. The structure of the CA-Pb2+ complex was also studied through advanced spectroscopic techniques. Moreover, the presence of iron results in the formation of a stable CA-Fe2+ complex without any significant color change, as Fe2+ has a stronger binding affinity with CA. Thus, sodium fluoride (NaF) was used to prevent CA-Fe2+ complex formation. Therefore, two methods were developed based on the absence (method I) and presence (method II) of NaF. The LOD and LOQ for the method I was 0.0025 and 0.0076 mg mL–1, and for method II, values were 0.0136 and 0.0415 mg mL–1, respectively. The methods were also validated by intra and inter-day analyses. A total of 45 commercials, including food and non-food samples, were screened for the detection of CA. The developed methods are applicable for the effective and rapid surveillance of CA in various samples without the use of high-tech instruments.Read More…
Food Control (2025)
Untargeted-metabolomics differentiation of unripened cow milk cheese produced from different sources of rennet
Azra Akbar, Amna Jabbar Siddiqui, Ali Raza, Anamta Zia, Khadijah Nakyinsige, Kawalya Hakiimu, Syed Ghulam Musharraf
The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of different rennet sources including calf, pig, and microbes on cheese prepared from cow’s milk using untargeted metabolomics approach. A total, of 89 compounds, including amino acids, aldehydes, saccharides, sulfur containing, cholesterol derivatives, alcohols, carboxylic acids, fatty acids, and lipids, were identified in different cheese samples. Comparison of metabolic profiles revealed that cheese produced with calf rennet exhibited higher levels of saccharides compared to pig rennet cheese. Conversely, pig rennet cheese showed significantly higher concentration of propionic acid, whiles the level of dimethyl disulfide, and was observed to be higher in cheese obtained from calf rennet. Pathway analysis highlighted metabolic pathways associated with amino acid metabolism (glycine, serine, and threonine), glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, and valine, leucine, and isoleucine biosynthesis. Overall, this study provides a detailed metabolic profile that distinguishes among cheese samples produced using different sources of rennet.Read More…
Food Control (2025)
Authentication of porcine, bovine, and fish gelatins based on quantitative profile of amino acid and chemometric analysis
Mahjabeen Hassan, Tehreem Kanwal, Amna Jabbar Siddiqui, Arslan Ali, Dilshad Hussain, Syed Ghulam Musharraf
Gelatin is a biological macromolecule derived from the partial hydrolysis of collagen protein. This paper describes a sensitive and rapid method for the detection of gelatin sources based on the composition of amino acids. Hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (HILIC-MS/MS) and chemometric tools such as principle component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) were used for the analysis and spectral classification, respectively. Twenty amino acids are identified and quantified with the limit-of-detection (LOD) of 0.03-2.62 μg/mL and limit-of-quantification (LOQ) of 0.10-7.93 μg/mL, a precision of 0.19-11.21% and 0.03-13.62% (%RSD) for intra and inter-day, respectively, and a total recovery of 85.1-107.6%. Porcine gelatin showed correlation with glycine, proline, hydroxyproline, tyrosine glutamine, and glutamic acid; Bovine gelatin was correlated with lysine, leucine, and isoleucine histidine, phenylalanine, and alanine, and fish gelatin showed correlation with methionine, threonine, serine arginine and cysteine in PCA analysis. Verification of the developed method was confirmed by using different commercial and laboratory prepared gelatin products containing gelatin and the samples were successfully categorized into their respective sources.Read More…