Simultaneous determination of snow crab major aeroallergens (tropomyosin and arginine kinase) in crab and shrimp processing plants and fishing vessels using tandem mass spectrometry

Introduction: During seafood harvesting and processing some of the proteins are aerosolized and some airborne proteins can cause allergic reactions in exposed workers. Tropomyosin and arginine kinase have recently been reported as the major snow crab allergens.  

Objective: To study the allergenicity of the major crab and shrimp protein extracts and develop analytical methods for determining the levels of aeroallergens in processing plants and fishing vessels.  

Methods: A liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometric method was developed to simultaneously detect and quantify these aeroallergen proteins in air samples. These proteins were isolated from the seafood meat and identified using mass spectrometry. The allergenicity of the extracts was evaluated against patient’s sera. Specific signature peptides that analytically represent these allergenic proteins were synthesized in light and heavy forms to be used as standard and internal standards, respectively. Multiple-reaction monitoring transitions were developed in tandem mass spectrometry using standards of the generated signature peptides.  Results: The validity of the methods was studied according to FDA guidelines, where the linearity of the method was satisfactory with a wide dynamic range (1 -1000 nM) and the precision and accuracy were found to be 1.8-8% and 91-104%, respectively. Air samples were collected on filters from different crab and shrimp workplaces (plants and fishing vessels).  

Conclusion: The levels of both aeroallergens were significantly elevated in the processing plants, while arginine kinase was undetectable on the fishing vessels.