Oligonucleotide indexing of DNA barcodes: identification of tuna and other scombrid species in food products

Background: DNA barcodes are a global standard for species identification and have countless applications in the medical, forensic and alimentary fields, but few barcoding methods work efficiently in samples in which DNA is degraded, e. g. foods and archival specimens. This limits the choice of target regions harbouring a sufficient number of diagnostic polymorphisms. The method described here uses existing PCR and sequencing methodologies to detect mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms in complex matrices such as foods. The reported application allowed the discrimination among 17 fish species of the Scombridae family with high commercial interest such as mackerels, bonitos and tunas which are often present in processed seafood. The approach can be easily upgraded with the release of new genetic diversity information to increase the range of detected species. Results: Cocktail of primers are designed for PCR using publicly available sequences of the target sequence. They are composed of a fixed 5' region and of variable 3' cocktail portions that allow amplification of any member of a group of species of interest. The population of short amplicons is directly sequenced and indexed using primers containing a longer 5' region and the non polymorphic portion of the cocktail portion. A 226 bp region of CytB was selected as target after collection and screening of 148 online sequences; 85 SNPs were found, of which 75 were present in at least two sequences. Primers were also designed for two shorter sub-fragments that could be amplified from highly degraded samples. The test was used on 103 samples of seafood (canned tuna and scomber, tuna salad, tuna sauce) and could successfully detect the presence of different or additional species that were not identified on the labelling of canned tuna, tuna salad and sauce samples. Conclusions: The described method is largely independent of the degree of degradation of DNA source and can thus be applied to processed seafood. Moreover, the method is highly flexible: publicly available sequence information on mitochondrial genomes are rapidly increasing for most species, facilitating the choice of target sequences and the improvement of resolution of the test. This is particularly important for discrimination of marine and aquaculture species for which genome information is still limited.