Development of a mass spectrometry-based foodomics approach to characterize the fate of selected antibiotic residues during food processing and storage.

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Despite the global efforts to manage antibiotics used as veterinary drugs, residues are frequently detected in food such as meat, seafood, milk, honey or eggs. Recently, we showed that one antibiotic, chloramphenicol, does not exist solely as the parent compound in food, but also occur as a multitude of (often unidentified) metabolites, and can transform during cooking into far more complex chemical mixtures with unknown impact for human health.***The long-term objective of this research program is to prove that many chemical contaminants are not solely present as the parent compound in food, but rather as a complex mixture of often unidentified structures as a result of thermal degradation/isomerization/interaction with food components. This program intends to develop a novel foodomics approach that improves the detection and identification of chemical contaminants in food from field to fork. This work will enrich the current database of known contaminants (e.g. veterinary drugs) with their metabolites and other structurally related chemicals (e.g. degradation products). While the present approach is applicable to any type of food, the initial efforts will focus on fish/seafood to demonstrate the conceptual approach.***The Short-term Objective of this program (5-years) is to characterize the fate of key veterinary drug residues in incurred seafood samples (tilapia/trout/lobster). The applicant intends to develop analytical methods for the non-targeted analysis of the metabolites of three veterinary drugs (nitrofurazone, oxytetracycline and sulfadimethoxine) in these fish/seafood (AIM 1); and investigate the changes induced by food storage and heating (cooking) on these residues (AIM 2). This research program will establish optimal foodomics protocols for antibiotics in seafood, thus paving the way for investigating other food matrices and contaminants (long-term objective).***This project will build innovation and deepen knowledge in the field of food chemistry, analytical chemistry and food safety. Notably, this study will allow developing analytical standards for seafood tissue metabolomics as standard protocols are urgently needed. The results of AIMs 1 and 2 will also highlight the diversity of metabolites and degradation by-products in food, which currently remains unidentified. Overall, this research will have an impact on the surveillance and the food safety risk assessment of veterinary drugs. It is anticipated to strengthen and complement the work of regulatory bodies in the identification and assessment of chemical risks.