Specific identification of chicken and soybean fraud in premium burgers using multiplex-PCR method

Abstract

The increased consumption of meat products, such as hamburger in large cities such as Tehran, has highlighted the importance of quality control for these products. Due to the escalating cost of red meat, and the difficulty of detecting adulteration in ground meat, the replacement of red meat with cheaper animal and plant proteins in these products is clearly possible. As a result, the aim of this study was to investigate the validity of labeling in premium hamburgers made of beef. In addition, the presence of soybean and chicken meat, which constitutes commercial fraud in premium hamburgers, was detected using a sensitive and quick multiplex-PCR method. In total, 10 specified brands of premium hamburgers purported to consist of beef were collected from markets in Tehran City, Iran. DNA was extracted from the premium hamburgers, then, simplex-PCR and multiplex-PCR fwere optimized using specific beef, chicken and soybean primers. The 118, 183, and 274 bp fragments, were amplified in all samples from soybean lectin, 12 s rRNA, and mitochondrial cytochrome b genes, respectively. The results indicated the addition of chicken meat and soybean in the premium hamburgers which were not indicated on their labels.