Foods 2014, 3, 217-237; doi:10.3390/foods3020217 OPEN ACCESS foods ISSN 2304-8158 www.mdpi.com/journal/foods Review The “Dark Side” of Food Stuff Proteomics: The CPLL-Marshals Investigate Pier Giorgio Righetti 1,*, Elisa Fasoli 1, Alfonsina D’Amato 1 and Egisto Boschetti 2 1 Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, Milano 20131, Italy; E-Mails:
[email protected] (E.F.);
[email protected] (A.D.) 2 EB Consulting, Paris, France; E-Mail:
[email protected] * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail:
[email protected]; Tel.: +39-022-399-3045; Fax: +39-022-399-3080. Received: 4 February 2014; in revised form: 8 April 2014 / Accepted: 8 April 2014 / Published: 17 April 2014 Abstract: The present review deals with analysis of the proteome of animal and plant-derived food stuff, as well as of non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages. The survey is limited to those systems investigated with the help of combinatorial peptide ligand libraries, a most powerful technique allowing access to low- to very-low-abundance proteins, i.e., to those proteins that might characterize univocally a given biological system and, in the case of commercial food preparations, attest their genuineness or adulteration. Among animal foods the analysis of cow’s and donkey’s milk is reported, together with the proteomic composition of egg white and yolk, as well as of honey, considered as a hybrid between floral and animal origin. In terms of plant and fruits, a survey is offered of spinach, artichoke, banana, avocado, mango and lemon proteomics, considered as recalcitrant tissues in that small amounts of proteins are dispersed into a large body of plant polymers and metabolites.