Molecular technologies and applications in seafood safety

Abstract

Global seafood consumption has significantly increased due to the health concerns of populations. One of the basic requirements to meet the increasing demand for seafood is security and safety. To meet these requirements, detection and identification of seafood pathogens are of importance. For this purpose, besides conventional methods a variety of rapid, sensitive and reliable techniques have been developed. In general, rapid detection methods are generally time-efficient, sensitive, specific and labor-saving. This review emphasizes on the principles and applications of recent rapid methods for the detection of seafood pathogens; including polymerase chain reaction (PCR), multiplex PCR, Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction or Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR), Denaturation Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE), loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP).