A sensitive and effective proteomic approach to identify she-donkey's and goat's milk adulterations by MALDI-TOF MS fingerprinting.

She-donkey's milk (DM) and goat's milk (GM) are commonly used in newborn and infant feeding because they are less allergenic than other milk types. It is, therefore, mandatory to avoid adulteration and contamination by other milk allergens, developing fast and efficient analytical methods to assess the authenticity of these precious nutrients. In this experimental work, a sensitive and robust matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) profiling was designed to assess the genuineness of DM and GM milks. This workflow allows the identification of DM and GM adulteration at levels of 0.5%, thus, representing a sensitive tool for milk adulteration analysis, if compared with other laborious and time-consuming analytical procedures.