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and concisely? If no,
please specify the needed
revisions.
by an end user. The authors appear to be suggesting
that the amount of allergen in an unknown sample
would be determined by comparing the sample
area ratio (sample peptide area/heavy internal
standard area) to the calibration curve constructed
from the incurred/spiked food area ratio. Is that
correct? Would the authors intend for each user to
run the incurred/spiked food calibration curve? If
so, will those materials be available for end users?
Also, if that is the intended quantification method
to obtain a result, why did the authors use different
quantitative comparisons in their recovery analysis?
Lastly, if the quantification strategy uses the
incurred/spiked foods as the calibration curve, then
the quantitative data shown in the submission only
supports the performance of the method with the
standard curve itself, not on any sort of unknown or
reference samples.
In addition, the authors initially show the results for
just the one quantifier ion for each allergenic food
(Tables 10-14), but then go on to show quantitative
results for the qualifier ion in Appendix 4. How were
those results based on the qualifier ion calculated?
Did the authors also have heavy internal standards
for the qualifier ion?
The method and the supporting information are
also not clear on how the data from the other
transitions described as being monitored in the
method (from the other peptides and/or proteins)
would be assessed. Supposedly two transitions for
each of two peptides from two proteins from the
allergenic source were monitored, but no data for
other transitions/peptides/proteins (aside from the
qualifier/quantifier ions) are presented in the
supporting information. Does confirmation of
presence of the allergenic food require detection of
all of the transitions or only some of them?