Processed meat profiling using DNA barcoding

Abstract

More than ever, the globalization together with the changes in consumer food pattern and lifestyle has led to high consumption of processed meat in daily food diet in Malaysia. However, food fraud issues in the form of ingredient substitution, mislabeling, abstraction of valuable contents and adulteration can lead to the consequences like illegal sales of threatened species, causing problem for the diets of certain consumer, such as vegetarians and religious group, and potential health risks to the consumer of this product. Thus, DNA barcoding, a robust and reliable method, were chosen to profile the processed meat up to species level. A total of 10 processed meat products were purchased from local supermarkets chains all around Johor, Malaysia including ground, frozen and canned meats. All the samples were then sequenced across a 300 bp region of the cytochrome b (cytb) gene. The resulting sequences were queried against Genbank for species identification. Overall, the results showed that out of 10 samples, 6 (60 %) samples were classified as correctly labeled while; however, another 4 (40 %) samples were found mislabeled, attributed by the false declaration of species. All mislabeled products were claimed to contain only beef on their packaging without any specification on the meat source as required by Malaysia Food Regulation 1985. Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) DNA was found in 3 out of 4 products labeled as beef. Interestingly, 1 out of 4 mislabeled beef products have 99 % genetic similarities with Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus) DNA, thus being classified under mislabeling and substitution case. To sum up, DNA barcoding can be conclude as accurate, sensitive and reliable technique of processed meat authentication that will overcome the ineffectiveness of traditional morphological identification methods and resolve numerous issues regarding food fraud.