Direct-PCR Based Analysis of Fish Meat Mislabeling Identification in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan

For financial gain, consumers are deceived when fish is being sold in the market by committing different types of frauds including species substitution, intentional mislabeling, etc.This activity misrepresents the commercial food products and their identification at any level of the food supply chain.Scientific methods and technologies are continually being introduced and enhanced to combat the growing challenges of food mislabeling and fraud.Direct PCR-based analysis is devised for fish meat identification to check the fraudulence and authenticity.For this purpose, in-house developed assay was used for DNA extraction.A Polymerase Chain Reaction -Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method was used subsequently.The universal primers were designed to target the mitochondrial gene 16S rRNA.The targeted gene was successfully amplified and a band of 390 bp of the region inside the 16S rRNA gene in all fish species was detected through agarose gel electrophoresis.The digestion fragments of the PCR products obtained with restriction endonucleases TasI, AvaII and HinfI proved that the fish meat could be distinguished based on the presence of various RFLP patterns, generated due to the application of different enzymes.Results obtained from this study could be used to distinguish the four tasteful and most common local fish varieties i.e., Rohu (Labeo rohita), Malli (Wallago Attu), Catfish (Rita rita) and Chirra (Oreochromis niloticus) and hence suggest a successful solution for the fraudulent issue.