Autofocusing MALDI MS imaging of processed food exemplified by the contaminant acrylamide in German gingerbread

Acrylamide is a toxic reaction product occurring in dry-heated food such as bakery products. To meet the requirements laid down in recent international legal norms calling for reduction strategies in food prone to acrylamide formation, efficient chromatography-based quantification methods are available. However, for an efficient mitigation of acrylamide levels, not only the quantity, but also the contaminant’s distributions are of interest especially in inhomogeneous food consisting of multiple ingredients. A promising tool to investigate the spatial distribution of analytes in food matrices is mass spectrometry imaging (MS imaging). In this study, an autofocusing MALDI MS imaging method was developed for German gingerbread as an example for highly processed and instable food with uneven surfaces. Next to endogenous food constituents, the process contaminant acrylamide was identified and visualized keeping a constant laser focus throughout the measurement. Statistical analyses based on relative acrylamide intensities suggest a higher contamination of nut fragments compared to the dough. In a proof-of-concept experiment, a newly developed in-situ chemical derivatization protocol is described using thiosalicylic acid for highly selective detection of acrylamide. This study presents autofocusing MS imaging as a suitable complementary method for the investigation of analytes’ distributions in complex and highly processed food.