Herbal products, such as dietary supplements, have become a subject of increasing global importance for their health benefits and economic considerations. However, they have also been targets of ...adulteration practices, being the accurate identification of botanicals in herbal products of utmost importance to protect the health and expectations of consumers. Particularly, in the case of dietary supplements, which can have different types of formulations, the identification of plant material used in their production is often a research challenge. DNA‐based techniques have played a crucial role on the development of a wide range of tools for the authentication of herbal products. Therefore, this review intends to describe their main progresses, critically discussing their advantages and drawbacks when applied to authenticate herbal products, focusing on dietary supplements. DNA barcoding is particularly emphasized because it has provided the highest number of applications, followed by the advances on high‐resolution melting analysis combined with DNA barcodes. A special emphasis is also given to the promising approaches relying on DNA metabarcoding and isothermal amplification.
The world's seafood supply and trade have increased in the last decades, as well as the potential for marketed species substitution. Currently, seafood safety and authenticity assessment have become ...central issues, directly related with the identification of improper labeling of processed foods. To detect and prevent mislabeling issues, species identification using DNA barcodes has been widely used as effective molecular markers. Therefore, this review intends to present the current status on the application of DNA barcodes to seafood species authentication. In this regard, the barcode regions, reference databases and related methodologies are described, while applications are listed and summarized. Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene has been the preferential targeted DNA region in animal species identification, including fish and shellfish, though other mitochondrial (cytb, 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA) and nuclear genes have been used. DNA barcoding relying on Sanger's sequencing has been the most used approach for seafood authentication. Nevertheless, in recent years, noteworthy progresses have been advanced toward DNA barcoding strategies, involving next generation sequencing. Methods relying on real-time PCR using species-specific primers and probes or followed by high resolution melting analysis combined with DNA barcodes represent alternative and promising approaches for simple, cost-effective and high-throughput species discrimination in processed seafood. Still, polymerase chain reaction with restriction fragment length polymorphism detection, targeting DNA barcodes, continues to be a well-established and broadly accepted method in seafood authentication.
Honey is a highly consumed natural product, not only for its taste and nutritional value, but also for its health benefits. Owing to characteristics that are essentially or exclusively related to the ...specific region or particular local environment and flora, honey can be classified as a premium product generally perceived as a high‐quality and valued product because of its desirable flavor and taste. Consequently, honey has been a target of adulteration through inappropriate/fraudulent production practices and mislabeling origin. Globally, authentication of honey covers 2 main aspects: the production, with main issues related to sugar syrup addition, filtration, thermal treatment, and water content; and the labeled origin (geographical and/or botanical) and “organic” provenance. This review addresses all those issues, focusing on the approaches to detect the different types of honey adulteration. Due to the complex nature of honey and to the different types of adulteration, its authentication has been challenging and prompted the development of several advanced analytical approaches. Therefore, an updated, critical, and extensive overview on the current and advanced analytical methods targeting markers of adulteration/authenticity, including nontarget fingerprint approaches will be provided. The most recent advances on molecular, chromatographic, and spectroscopic methodologies will be described, emphasizing their pros and cons for the identification of botanical and geographical origins.
Over the last few years, the subject of food authenticity and food fraud has received increasing attention from consumers and other stakeholders, such as government agencies and policymakers, control ...labs, producers, industry, and the research community. Among the different approaches aiming to identify, tackle, and/or deter fraudulent practices in the agri-food sector, the development of new, fast, and accurate methodologies to evaluate food authenticity is of major importance. This book, entitled “Target and Non-Target Approaches for Food Authenticity and Traceability”, gathers original research and review papers focusing on the development and application of both targeted and non-targeted methodologies applied to verify food authenticity and traceability. The contributions regard different foods, among which some are frequently considered as the most prone to adulteration, such as olive oil, honey, meat, and fish. This book is intended for readers aiming to enrich their knowledge through reading contemporary and multidisciplinary papers on the topic of food authentication.
In the last decade, consumers have become increasingly aware of and concerned about the quality and safety of food, in part due to several scandals that were widely disseminated by the media ....
Species identification in meat products has grown in interest in recent years since these foodstuffs are susceptible targets for fraudulent labelling. In this work, a real-time PCR approach based on ...SYBR Green dye was proposed for the quantitative detection of pork meat in processed meat products. For the development of the method, binary meat mixtures containing known amounts of pork meat in poultry meat were used to obtain a normalised calibration model from 0.1 to 25% with high linear correlation and PCR efficiency. The method revealed high specificity by melting curve analysis, being successfully validated through its application to blind meat mixtures, which confirmed its adequacy for pork meat determination. The fully applicability of the method was further demonstrated in commercial meat products, allowing verification of labelling compliance and identification of meat species in processed foods.
► Species-specific PCR identification in meat products. ► A novel SYBR Green real-time quantitative PCR assay for pork determination. ► Validation and application of the method to analyse real processed foods. ► Authentication of poultry meat foods.
•A novel real-time PCR coupled to HRM analysis differentiated Cynara spp.•The approach allowed discriminating C. scolymus from other Cynara species.•C. scolymus was detected down to 0.4 pg (0.36 ...copies) of DNA.•Application to authenticate plant food supplements and herbal infusions was shown.•C. scolymus was detected in 38% of the samples, while 7% suggest mislabelling.
Cynara scolymus L., known as globe artichoke, is a medicinal plant widely used in plant food supplements (PFS) and herbal infusions due to its beneficial health properties. The high demand for artichoke-containing products can lead to adulteration practices. In this work, a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system coupled to high-resolution melting (HRM) analysis was proposed to differentiate C. scolymus from other Cynara species. Hence, a Cynara-specific real-time PCR assay was successfully developed with high analytical performance, achieving a sensitivity of 0.4 pg of globe artichoke DNA. HRM analysis enabled the discrimination of C. scolymus, with a high level of confidence (>98%), corroborating sequencing data. Application results to artichoke-containing PFS and mixed herbal infusions allowed confirming the presence of C. scolymus in 38% of the samples, suggesting the substitution/mislabelling of globe artichoke in 2 samples and the need for further efforts to increase DNA amplifiability of PFS.
In the last few years, the consumption of dietary supplements, especially those having plants as ingredients, has been increasing due to the common idea that they are natural products posing no risks ...to human health. In the European Union and the United States, dietary supplements are legally considered as foods/special category of foods, thus are not being submitted to any safety assessment prior to their commercialization. Among the issues that can affect safety, adulteration by the illegal addition of pharmaceutical substances or their analogs is of major concern since unscrupulous producers can falsify these products to provide for quick effects and to increase sales. This review discusses the various classes of synthetic drugs most frequently described as being illegally added to dietary supplements marketed for weight loss, muscle building/sport performance and sexual performance enhancement. Information regarding regulation and consumption is also presented. Finally, several conventional and advanced analytical techniques used to detect and identify different adulterants in dietary supplements and therefore also in foods, with particular emphasis on plant food supplements, are critically described. This review demonstrates that dietary supplement adulteration is an emerging food safety problem and that an effective control by food regulatory authorities is needed to safeguard consumers.
High-resolution melting (HRM) analysis is a cost-effective, specific, and rapid tool that allows distinguishing genetically related plants and other organisms based on the detection of small ...nucleotide variations, which are recognized from melting properties of the double-stranded DNA. It has been widely applied in several areas of research and diagnostics, including botanical authentication of several food commodities and herbal products. Generally, it consists of the main steps: (1) in silico sequence analysis and primer design; (2) DNA extraction from plant material; (3) amplification by real-time PCR with an enhanced fluorescent dye targeting a specific DNA barcode or other regions of taxonomic interest (100-200 bp); (4) melting curve analysis; and (5) statistical data analysis using a specific HRM software. This chapter presents an overview of HRM analysis and application, followed by the detailed description of all the required reagents, instruments, and protocols for the successful and easy implementation of a HRM method to differentiate closely related plant species.
Milk is one of the most important nutritious foods, widely consumed worldwide, either in its natural form or via dairy products. Currently, several economic, health and ethical issues emphasize the ...need for a more frequent and rigorous quality control of dairy products and the importance of detecting adulterations in these products. For this reason, several conventional and advanced techniques have been proposed, aiming at detecting and quantifying eventual adulterations, preferentially in a rapid, cost-effective, easy to implement, sensitive and specific way. They have relied mostly on electrophoretic, chromatographic and immunoenzymatic techniques. More recently, mass spectrometry, spectroscopic methods (near infrared (NIR), mid infrared (MIR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and front face fluorescence coupled to chemometrics), DNA analysis (real-time PCR, high-resolution melting analysis, next generation sequencing and droplet digital PCR) and biosensors have been advanced as innovative tools for dairy product authentication. Milk substitution from high-valued species with lower-cost bovine milk is one of the most frequent adulteration practices. Therefore, this review intends to describe the most relevant developments regarding the current and advanced analytical methodologies applied to species authentication of milk and dairy products.
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