Protein Standard Absolute Quantification (PSAQ) for improved investigation of staphylococcal food poisoning outbreaks.

Staphylococcal enterotoxins are major causing agents of food-borne diseases. Their detection in food remnants for risk assessment or food poisoning outbreaks investigation suffers from a lack in comprehensive immunological tools. In this study, we demonstrate that the combination of immunocapture and Protein Standard Absolute Quantification (PSAQ) strategy, which uses isotope-labeled enterotoxins as internal standards for MS-based analysis, is powerful to specifically identify and quantify these contaminating agents in food matrices. This approach is believed to significantly improve the elucidation of staphylococcal food poisoning outbreaks.