Front face synchronous fluorescence as a tool for the quality assurance of Greek milk

• Main Authors: Charalambos Fotakis, Georgios Mousdis, Panagiota Langi, Kelly Kalantzi, Artemis Hatzigeorgiou, Charalampos Proestos
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020-11-01
• Series: Arabian Journal of Chemistry
• Subjects: Milk; Synchronous fluorescence; Chemometrics; Adulteration; Quality assurance
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878535220303439

This research focuses on implementing the low cost and rapid front face synchronous fluorescence (SyFS) in order to ensure the quality assurance of Greek milk. Specifically, samples originated from the Greek domestic production of goat, sheep, cow, as well as foreign cow milk samples and adulterated cow milk samples. SyFS spectra were acquired in the excitation area of 250–500 nm with (Δλ)= 100 nm. Greek and foreign cow milk samples were differentiated based on intensity variations at wavelengths 350–515 nm, 540–579 nm, and 580–600 nm. The emissions at these wavelength positions correspond to tryptophan, vitamin A, and riboflavin. The supervised model with 94 samples exhibited p-value = 7,98E-11, RMSEE= 0,29171, RMSEcv= 0,29284 and RMSEP= 0,98013, AUROC for Greek samples= 0,61 and AUROC for foreign= 0,85. We differentiated milk samples according to the animal type with PCA and OPLS-DA models of 107 samples exhibiting RMSEE= 0,225842, RMSEcv= 0,228054 and RMSEP= 0,518635, AUROC for sheep samples= 0,99, AUROC for goat samples= 0,98 and AUROC for cow samples= 0,96. In fact, the emission band 350–591 nm characterized sheep milk and corresponds to aminoacids and fatty acids, cow milk was related to the 350–600 nm emission band related to the b-carotene and to the goat milk the emission bands 350–505 nm and 520–600 nm were attributed to tryptophan, NADH and Rivoflabin. Finally, we investigated whether SyFS coupled with chemometrics may provide preliminary evidence on adulterated cow milk samples. All models were validated with permutation testing, p-values and ROC curves.