CHARACTERIZATION OF AIRBORNE ALLERGENS OF SNOW CRAB AND DETERMINATION OF THEIR LEVELS IN AIR SAMPLES OF PROCESSING PLANTS USING MASS SPECTROMETRY

摘要

The major allergen of snow crab was characterized using patient sera in terms of allergenicity. Tropomyosin, the major allergen, was de novo sequenced using two enzymatic digestions, ion sources, and derivatization protocols by tandem QqToF. The TM signature peptide (SPTM) was determined as the protein surrogate and used for developing a highly sensitive, selective, and specific quantification method using LC-MS/MS. The validity of the quantification method was studied, and other specific parameters optimized for the target protein i. e. the digestion completion and linearity, extraction recovery for filters, and use of TopTip filters. The method was tested on real samples that have been collected from the simulated processing of whole snow crab.