title: Authentication of Punica granatum L.: Development of SCAR markers for the detection of 10 fruits potentially used in economically motivated adulteration.
abstract: The large commercial success of pomegranate increase the likelihood of economically motivated adulteration (EMA), which has been gradually spotted with the undeclared addition of anthocyanin-rich plants or cheaper fruit juices used as bulking and diluting agents. A method based on Sequence-Characterized Amplified Regions (SCARs) was developed to detect the presence of Aristotelia chilensis, Aronia melanocarpa, Dioscorea alata, Euterpe oleracea, Malus×domestica, Morus nigra, Sambucus nigra, Vaccinium macrocarpon, Vaccinium myrtillus, Vitis vinifera as bulking agents in Punica granatum. The method enabled the unequivocal detection of up to 1% of each adulterant, allowing the preemptive rejection of suspect samples. The recourse to such method may reduce the number of samples to be subjected to further phytochemical analyses when multiple batches have to be evaluated in a short time. Vice versa, it allows the cross-check of suspect batches previously tested only for their anthocyanin profile. The dimension of the amplicons is suitable for the analysis of degraded DNA obtained from stored and processed commercial material. Proper SCAR markers may represent a fast, sensitive, reliable and low-cost screening method for the authentication of processed commercial pomegranate material.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze degli Alimenti, LS9 Interlab Group, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parco delle Scienze 59/A, I-43124 Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marieschi
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Bioscienze, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parco delle Scienze 11/A, I-43124 Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Torelli
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze degli Alimenti, LS9 Interlab Group, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parco delle Scienze 59/A, I-43124 Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Beghé
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze degli Alimenti, LS9 Interlab Group, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parco delle Scienze 59/A, I-43124 Parma, Italy. Electronic address: renato.bruni@unipr.it.
authors.forename: Renato
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bruni
mesh_terms: D000872:Anthocyanins / Q000032:analysis; D001483:Base Sequence; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D005511:Food Handling; D005638:Fruit / Q000737:chemistry*; D029561:Lythraceae / Q000737:chemistry*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data
chemical_list: D000872:Anthocyanins; D015415:Biomarkers
keywords: Adulteration; Fraud detection; Pomegranate; Processed fruits; SCAR