Species Identification of Animal Hair Present as a Contaminant in Food by PCR-APLP Method

Abstract

A rapid, simple and inexpensive method was developed for identifying the species of animal hair present as a contaminant in food. A polymerase chain reaction-amplified product length polymorphism (PCR-APLP) assay was applied to identify hair from human and others (cat, dog, rabbit, rat and mouse) or livestock (pig, cattle, horse, sheep, goat and chicken). The PCR primers were designed to amplify partial sequences from the 16S rRNA gene to the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1 (ND1) gene of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which generate different length fragments for different animal species. The PCR-APLP assay utilized two PCR reaction tubes, each of which contained one universal forward primer and six species-specific reverse primers (human, etc. or livestock). Simultaneous identification was possible by agarose gel electrophoresis of PCR products. The developed method was applied to identify the source species of 52 animal hair samples. The expected amplified product length was obtained from all samples.