MOLECULAR-BASED SCREENING FOR THE AUTHENTICATION OF COMMERCIALLY PROCESSED MEAT PRODUCTS SOLD IN KADUNA METROPOLIS, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

Adulteration in meat products encompasses the fraudulent replacement or addition of animal(s) that are of cheaper varieties or plant proteins like soybeans. A molecular- based screening was conducted to authenticate commercially processed meat products sold in Kaduna metropolis. A total of 60 processed meat samples were purchased from supermarkets, confectioneries, cold rooms, and prominent retail markets. These included 12 sausages, 13 minced meats, 11 beef patties, 11 beef jerkies, and 13 corned beef. Samples were analyzed using multiplex PCR and sequencing. The result shows that 28.33% of the processed samples were substituted with camel meat, while none was substituted with donkey or porcine meat. The study also revealed that 81% of beef patty samples, 38.46% of minced meat samples, 18.18% of beef jerky samples and 8.33% of sausage samples were harboring camel meat. There was a significant difference (P ≤ 0.05) in substituting some of the products within the different study sites. DNA sequencing of the PCR positive results and sequence alignment using the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database confirmed the genes as Camelus dromedarius cytochrome b gene for sample positive for camel residues and Bos taurus mitochondrial complete genome for sample positive for cattle tissue. The findings in this study showed that processed beef products sold in the study area were substituted with camel meat, whereas, donkey and porcine residuals were not found in the processed meat product samples.