Applying COI Barcode to Identify Animal Origin of Food

Abstract

DNA barcoding possesses advantages of high resolution, high sensitivity, and capability in capturing as much identity information as possible. However, highly varying sources of food materials and a complicated supply chain bring about challenge to the application of barcoding methods. In this study, different barcode systems were compared to establish a robust method for tracing animal species in food. Experiments on food samples from mammal, poultry, and fish proved that a mini barcode system targeting a 192 bp COI gene fragment was able to accurately identify both raw and highly processed animal food. In order to distinguish species in a mixed food sample, cloning technique was used by which as low as 10% target animal ingredient could be detected. Testing of marketed food products verified the capability of the mini barcoding method in identifying illegally claimed product.

NGS-based barcoding with mini-COI gene target is useful for pet food market surveys aimed at mislabelling detection

“…From the perspective of a possible routine application of this method, we tested the efficiency of NGS-based DNA barcoding approaches for the reliable detection of a broad spectrum of species in pet feeds. Short fragments (100-300 bp) of genomic DNA derived from products subjected to strong mechanical, physical and chemical processes are frequently degraded [28][29][30] , making it impossible to exploit the ~ 650 bp portion of cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI), universally recognized as the gold standard for the detection of animal species [31][32][33] . To overcome this limitation, analyses were restricted to a 127 bp hypervariable region of the same gene using a degenerate version of a primer pair originally proposed by Meusnier et al 34 .…”

Life barcoded by DNA barcodes

“…In the same way, genetic authentications using barcodes are also becoming more and more common in food adulteration and manufacture of drugs of natural origin (e.g. herbal products or mixtures in traditional Chinese medicine), misidentification of which sometimes could be poisonous and life-threatening (Kreuzer et al 2019 ; Wu et al 2019 ). Aside from herbal medicine, metabarcoding of pollen and fungal spores can also be incorporated into forensic palynology and security intelligence to link persons or objects with particular places and times, given pollen and fungal spores’ ubiquity in the environment, their potential for geographic and temporal inference, and their long-term durability (Bell et al 2016 ).…”

Development and verification of a quantitative real‐time PCR method to identify and quantify gelatin derived from animal hide

“…As genetic detection techniques have been widely used in the field of food safety for more than 20 years (Demirhan, Ulca, & Senyuva, 2012;Mohamad, Mustafa, Khairil Mokhtar, & El Sheikha, 2018;Wu et al, 2019) and fluorescence-based quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) is recognized as the most reliable,…”

“…As genetic detection techniques have been widely used in the field of food safety for more than 20 years (Demirhan, Ulca, & Senyuva, 2012; Mohamad, Mustafa, Khairil Mokhtar, & El Sheikha, 2018; Wu et al., 2019) and fluorescence‐based quantitative real‐time PCR (qPCR) is recognized as the most reliable, sensitive, accurate, and rapid genetic screening technique (Cai et al., 2012; Wu et al., 2015), DNA‐based technology has become the most promising method for gelatin identification. Nevertheless, unlike unprocessed or slightly processed foods, hide gelatin undergoes a series of extremely intense processes that render DNA extraction a considerable challenge and result in a high‐false negative rate in real‐time PCR testing (Cai et al., 2012; Demirhan et al., 2012).…”