Mass spectrometry-based metabolomics approach to reveal differential compounds in pufferfish soups: Flavor, nutrition, and safety

Some Eastern Asian countries deem pufferfish - especially its muscle - a culinary delight. Herein, molecular mass fingerprinting of soups prepared by Takifugu fiavidus, Takifugu obscurus and Takifugu rubripes was established via matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization - mass spectrometry (MALDI MS). Soup samples were directly analyzed by MALDI MS to collect mass spectra within 0-700 Da in a quick way, followed by principal component analysis to distinguish the different soups and to find out the distinctive compounds among the soups. High performance liquid chromatography - tandem MS (HPLC-MS/MS) was applied to identify the compounds. Nineteen compounds were identified from the HPLC-MS/MS data by using METLIN database. Through literature mining, we found that these compounds are closely related to the flavor, nutrition, and safety of pufferfish soups. This method can also be used as a facile way to distinguish between different pufferfish fillets when morphological characters have been damaged or destroyed.