Rizzo Serena, Weesepoel Yannick, Erasmus Sara, Sinkeldam Joost, Piccinelli Anna Lisa, van Ruth Saskia
Wageningen Food Safety Research, Wageningen University and Research, P.O. Box 230, 6700 AE, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Department of Pharmacy, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084 Fisciano, Salerno, Italy.
Heliyon. 2023 Jul 20;9(8):e18509. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18509. eCollection 2023 Aug.
The popularity and number of dietary supplements on the health market have experienced an unprecedented boost in recent years. Simultaneously, their increased use has been accompanied by an increase in acute intoxication cases linked to the adulteration of these products with illicit and undeclared substances. In this study, a SERS-based screening methodology was developed to rapidly detect illegally added pharmaceutically active substances to dietary supplements. A portable analyzer and silver printed-SERS substrates were used to enhance the signal, requiring less than 20 min of sample preparation prior to the analysis. The method was successful in the qualitative identification of eleven out of twenty-three illicit adulterants in the dietary supplements; it could detect the target compounds at realistic adulteration levels (0.1-5.0% w/w), demonstrating the potential of SERS-based methodologies for forensic rapid screening applications. The developed method is quick, easy to use, requires no skilled technicians and little sample preparation, and allows in-situ analyses. For these reasons, it is suitable for quick screening to be performed by inspectors at customs. Moreover, the low specificity of spectroscopic methods, to which SERS belongs, would benefit the detection of newly synthesized analogues of the target adulterants, which would otherwise be more difficult using common mass spectrometry methods in absence of reference standards.
近年来，健康市场上膳食补充剂的受欢迎程度和数量都经历了前所未有的增长。与此同时，它们使用量的增加伴随着与这些产品被非法和未申报物质掺假相关的急性中毒病例的增加。在本研究中，开发了一种基于表面增强拉曼光谱（SERS）的筛查方法，用于快速检测膳食补充剂中非法添加的药物活性物质。使用便携式分析仪和银印刷SERS底物来增强信号，分析前样品制备时间不到20分钟。该方法成功地定性鉴定了膳食补充剂中23种非法掺假物中的11种；它能够在实际掺假水平（0.1 - 5.0% w/w）下检测目标化合物，证明了基于SERS的方法在法医快速筛查应用中的潜力。所开发的方法快速、易于使用，不需要熟练的技术人员，样品制备量少，并且允许进行原位分析。由于这些原因，它适合海关检查员进行快速筛查。此外，SERS所属的光谱方法特异性较低，这将有利于检测目标掺假物的新合成类似物，否则在没有参考标准的情况下，使用普通质谱方法检测这些类似物会更加困难。
