Rapid species level identification of fish eggs by proteome fingerprinting using MALDI-TOF MS

Quantifying spawning biomass of commercially relevant fish species is important to generate fishing quotas. This will mostly rely on the annual or daily production eggs. However, these have be identified precisely level obtain a reliable estimate offspring different species. Because morphological identification can very difficult, recent developments are heading towards application molecular tools. Methods such as COI barcoding long handling times and cause high costs for single specimen identifications. In order test MALDI-TOF MS, rapid cost-effective alternative identification, we eggs using used same specimens set up MS reference library. library, constructed from two instruments, was then identify unknown sampling occasion. By line evidence hierarchical clustering supervised approaches obtained concordant identifications 97.5% eggs, proving good tool At time point out necessity adjusting scores methods optimize success. Fish products highly many societies them major food resource. Over decades stocks various been reduced due unregulated overfishing. Nowadays, avoid overfishing threatening species, regularly monitored. One component this monitoring stock sizes. Whereas dependent correct difficult because lack features.