DNA Barcoding as a Molecular Tool to Track Down Mislabeling and Food Piracy

Abstract

DNA barcoding is a molecular technology that allows the identification of any biological species by amplifying, sequencing and querying the information from genic and/or intergenic standardized target regions belonging to the extranuclear genomes. Although these sequences represent a small fraction of the total DNA of a cell, both chloroplast and mitochondrial barcodes chosen for identifying plant and animal species, respectively, have shown sufficient nucleotide diversity to assess the taxonomic identity of the vast majority of organisms used in agriculture. Consequently, cpDNA and mtDNA barcoding protocols are being used more and more in the food industry and food supply chains for food labeling, not only to support food safety but also to uncover food piracy in freshly commercialized and technologically processed products. Since the extranuclear genomes are present in many copies within each cell, this technology is being more easily exploited to recover information even in degraded samples or transformed materials deriving from crop varieties and livestock species. The strong standardization that characterizes protocols used worldwide for DNA barcoding makes this technology particularly suitable for routine analyses required by agencies to safeguard food safety and quality. Here we conduct a critical review of the potentials of DNA barcoding for food labeling along with the main findings in the area of food piracy, with particular reference to agrifood and livestock foodstuffs.

A fish rots from the head down: how to use the leading digits of ecological data to detect their falsification

“…In the busy and messy field of ecology and conservation, warning lights might be very informative to detect problems as soon as possible and to avoid the contamination of decision making with wrong information. Their application would be similar to that of barcoding techniques in merceologic analysis, for auditing scams in food products or wood (Barcaccia et al, 2015; Godbout et al, 2018; Quinto et al, 2016). Once researchers decide to focus on a specific datasets that do not look trustworthy, they could opt for more in-depth and sophisticated approaches.…”

Methods of Molecular Diagnostics for Fish Species Identification

“…4. Scheme of the PCR-RFLP analysis with chip-based capillary electrophoresis using the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyser [48] DNA barcoding is also used as a molecular tool for determination of food product mislabeling and revelation of species adulteration [61].…”

From the Field to the Bottle—An Integrated Strategy for Wine Authenticity

“…In general, DNA barcoding is based on the amplification of short DNA fragments belonging to the mitochondrial (animal foodstuffs) or chloroplast (plant foodstuffs) genomes, which are conserved at the species levels and preserved in most of the processed food products, therefore, being advantageous when compared to other DNA fingerprinting and genotyping approaches. However, DNA barcoding has as its main limit low intraspecific polymorphism, compromising its capacity in distinguishing closely related species [81]. Therefore, the barcode has evolved through the reduction of long barcode regions to short subregions, allowing the species to still show enough divergence.…”