Closely Related Shrimp Species Identification by MALDI-ToF Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Tiger prawn, Penaeus monodon, and banana white prawn, Fenneropenaeus indicus—two of the most important commercial shrimp species—share world distribution, habitat, and similar morphometric characters. Because of commercial regulations about labeling and traceability requirements, species authentication methods are of great interest to fisheries and seafood industries. In this study, peptide mass fingerprints of both species are compared, using Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization–Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) after trypsin digestion of a protein resolved by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Though low variability among these species is observed, two peptides of mass 1077.6 and 1205.7 Da are found to be useful to differentiate them.

KEYWORDS:

• shrimp
• species authentication
• peptide mass fingerprint
• MALDI-TOF MS

This work was supported by Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrarias project No. CAL03-030-C2-2 “Aplicación de técnicas de genómica y proteómica a la identificación de especies de crustáceos comerciales pertenecientes al Orden Decapoda” and by PGIDIT Research Program in Marine Resources Project No. PGIDIT04RMA261004PR of the Xunta de Galicia. I. O. is supported by the FPU program (AP-2004-5826) under the auspices of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.