Proteomic Analysis of Honey: Peptide Profiling as a Novel Approach for New Zealand Manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) Honey Authentication

New Zealand manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) honey is a premium food product. Unfortunately, its high demand has led to not true to label marketed manuka honey. Robust methods are therefore required to determine authenticity. We previously identified three unique nectar-derived proteins in manuka honey, detected as twelve tryptic peptide markers, and hypothesized these could be used to determine authenticity. We invoked a targeted proteomic approach based on parallel reaction-monitoring (PRM) to selectively monitor relative abundance of these peptides in sixteen manuka and twenty six non-manuka honey samples of various floral origin. We included six tryptic peptide markers derived from three bee-derived major royal jelly proteins as potential internal standards. The twelve manuka-specific tryptic peptide markers were present in all manuka honeys with minor regional variation. By comparison, they had negligible presence in non-manuka honeys. Bee-derived peptides were detected in all honeys with similar relative abundance but with sufficient variation precluding their utility as internal standards. Manuka honeys displayed an inverse relationship between total protein content and the ratio between nectar- to bee-derived peptide abundance. This trend reveals an association between protein content on possible nectar processing time by bees. Overall, these findings demonstrate the first successful application of peptide profiling as an alternative and potentially more robust approach for manuka honey authentication.

Automated summary

New Zealand manuka honey is a premium food product but its high demand has led to counterfeit products. Researchers developed a method using unique nectar-derived proteins as markers to determine the authenticity of manuka honey. By analyzing the relative abundance of these markers in manuka and non-manuka honey samples, they found that manuka honeys had distinct peptide markers while non-manuka honeys did not, demonstrating the potential of peptide profiling as a more robust approach for authentication.