Advances in Polymerase Chain Reaction Technologies for Food Authenticity Testing

The horse meat scandal of 2013 has to be considered a turning point for DNA analysis in food authenticity. The discovery of horse meat as a fraudulent addition to beef meat preparations across Europe, such as burgers and lasagne, brought to the attention of consumers, law enforcers, and regulators the need for reliable, rapid, and effective tools for detection of such cases of adulteration (http://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/ of!cial_controls/food_fraud/horse_meat/index_en.htm). It was evident that the only way to detect the presence of horse meat was through analysis of DNA extracted from food, but the methods to be applied could be a matter for discussion (Busby and Burns, 2014); they can in fact be based on detection of nuclear or mitochondrial loci, in a qualitative or quantitative approach, with multitarget or simple approaches. The effectiveness and sensitivity of the methods determine the limit of detection (LOD), the threshold that defines the limits for applicability of the technique; below this limit, adulteration is not detectable.