Optimization of trypsin digestion time for the LC-MS identification of peptide markers to discriminate chicken liver in processed foods

The adulteration of meat products with offal is a globally recognized issue, reported worldwide. The increasing production of processed meat products, their complex composition, the variety of processing techniques used in their manufacture, and the growing sophistication of adulteration methods pose significant challenges to the identification of product ingredients. Current detection methods remain insufficient. In this study, we investigate the feasibility of using liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry to identify unique peptides specific to chicken (Gallus gallus) liver tissue. Our objective was to optimize the in-solution trypsin digestion time for the effective LC-MS-based identification of heat-treated chicken liver peptide markers. The dataset consists of 18 files in .mzML format from MS/MS experiments collected from chicken liver tissue samples digested in solution.The incubation was performed for: (I) 3 hours (n = 3), (II) 6 hours (n = 3), (III) 9 hours(n = 3), (IV) 12 hours (n = 3), (V) 15 hours (n = 3), and (VI) 18 hours (n = 3).Files in .mzML format can be opened using the SeeMS interactive viewer for mass spectrometry data files provided by ProrteoWizard, an open-source, cross-platform software tool for proteomic data analysis (https://proteowizard.sourceforge.io/).Data contains a ReadMe.txt file.