Detection of adulterated murine components in meat products by TaqMan© real-time PCR.

Using murine meat to substitute mutton has been identified as a new type of meat fraud in China， yet no detection method for murine species has been reported. Here， three kinds of rodent were used as target species to establish a murine-specific real-time PCR method of detection. The mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (cytb) of each target was sequenced and a TaqMan probe was designed based on the cytb. Simultaneously， an internal positive control (IPC) plasmid along with its respective probe were designed to monitor the PCR reaction. As a result， the duplex real-time PCR system was verified to be specific. The limit of detection (LOD) was lower than 1 pg of DNA per reaction and 0.1% murine contamination in meat mixtures. Standard curves were generated for a quantitative analysis. Thus， this study provided a new tool to control the quality of meat products for official and third-party laboratories.