Metabolic fingerprinting of in-bag dry- and wet-aged lamb with rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectroscopy

The effect of in-bag dry- and wet-ageing on metabolite profiles lamb legs was determined using Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS). Using orthogonal projection to latent structures-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) with REIMS, 1705 ions were identified (Q2 = 0.86) in four muscles: m. semimembranosus, biceps femoris, vastus lateralis rectus femoris. A total 663 metabolites differed between ageing methods (P < 0.05) which mainly resulted from proteolysis lipid metabolism. Dry-aged had higher pH 0.016) lower moisture content 0.034) than the wet-aged. Dry-ageing produced more smaller sized including dipeptides free amino acids oxidation compared wet-aged equivalents. Different muscles distinct REIMS metabolic profiles. Outcomes this study demonstrated that can be used for authentication based their fingerprints.