RESUMO
Consumers distrust beef or products that could contain beef because of the BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and vCJD (variant Creutzfeld Jacob Disease) cases during recent years. Cows could be fed with meat and bone meal-containing food. To regain consumer confidence methods are needed that allow the detection of smallest amounts of beef in the most different kind of products. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis can be used to detect the smallest amounts of even highly degraded DNA. In this work two methods are presented that allow the detection of mammal DNA and beef DNA, respectively, even in highly degraded DNA. The amplification of fragments as short as 66 and 76 bp, respectively, allow a determination of mammal or beef DNA even in meat and bone meal products.
RESUMO
Quantitative detection methods are needed for enforcement of the recently introduced labeling threshold for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food ingredients. This labeling threshold, which is set to 1% in the European Union and Switzerland, must be applied to all approved GMOs. Four different varieties of maize are approved in the European Union: the insect-resistant Bt176 maize (Maximizer), Btl 1 maize, Mon810 (YieldGard) maize, and the herbicide-tolerant T25 (Liberty Link) maize. Because the labeling must be considered individually for each ingredient, a quantitation system for the endogenous maize content is needed in addition to the GMO-specific detection systems. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction detection methods were developed for the 4 approved genetically modified maize varieties and for an endogenous maize (invertase) gene system.
