Whey protein powders are very important food proteins because of its high nutritional value and functional properties. A reliable ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) method has been developed for simultaneous determination of bovine α-lactalbumin and bovine β-lactoglobulin (including bovine β-lactoglobulin A and bovine β-lactoglobulin B). Compared with the existing quantification methods, UHPLC-MS/MS offers increased speed and enhanced lower detection limits. Bovine α-lactalbumin, bovine β-lactoglobulin A and bovine β-lactoglobulin B could be totally separated in less than 6 minutes and the accurate quantification was achieved by employing human α-lactalbumin as an internal standard, which allowed compensating target analytes losses and eliminating matrix effects. The established UHPLC-MS/MS method was extensively validated by determining the linearity (R<sup>2</sup>&gt;0.999), average recovery (94.0%-98.7%), sensitivity (limit of quantification 0.67-0.85 mg/kg), repeatability (relative standard deviation ≤ 5.7%) and precision (relative standard deviation ≤ 6.3%). The UHPLC-MS/MS method was shown to be a more suitable method for absolute quantitation of the whey proteins in biological matrix. Finally, a total of 33 milk products random collected from different factories in China was analyzed utilizing the established method.

Simultaneous determination of bovine α-lactalbumin and bovine β-lactoglobulin in milk powders by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

2019 Spring National Meeting

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