Proteomic Approaches for the Characterization of Non-enzymatic Modifications in Food Proteins

Proteins undergo a number of reactions during heat treatment and/or storage of foods, leading to a chemical modification of their structure. Among that, worth mentioning are those associated with the Maillard reaction as well as oxidation, carbonylation, dehydration, deamidation, cyclization and fragmentation processes. Systematic proteomic identification of these modifications and corresponding protein targets is very important for understanding how above-mentioned reactions can be controlled, and how inherent food beneficial properties can be preserved or enhanced. This review reports on the current knowledge in this research field, summarizing published results of proteomic studies on milk, meat, beer, peanut and walnut products.