Animal species identification in food products: evolution of biomolecular methods.
Species identification in food has increasingly acquired importance due to public health, economic and legal concerns. Traditional methods have relied on the identification of morphological traits, but this does not lead to accurate identification of those species used in many types of processed food. As a result, laboratory techniques have been devised using electrophoretic and immunological methods focussing on protein profiles and, more recently, biomolecular techniques have been developed. However, these techniques also present problems and difficulties, especially in the case of matrices that are heterogeneous or have been subjected to severe treatments during processing.
Department of Animal Pathology, University of Turin, Grugliasco, TO, Italy. mariateresa.bottero@unito.it
Maria Teresa
MT
Bottero
Alessandra
A
Dalmasso
D000483:Alleles; D000821:Animal Feed / Q000382:microbiology*; D000818:Animals; D004247:DNA / Q000032:analysis*; D005506:Food Contamination; D005516:Food Microbiology / Q000379:methods*; D005819:Genetic Markers; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
D005819:Genetic Markers; D004247:DNA