IDENTIFICATION OF CHICKEN AND DOG MEAT BY MITOCHONDRIAL 12S rRNA GENE PCR-RFLP

The fraudulent practice of cheap meat in costly meat is common nowadays. Therefore, there is need of precise identification of the meat species. We included in our study dog meat, as it is the most easily available cheap meat for adulteration. For specific identification of origin of meat animal species, we evaluated the common meat animal species including dog meat by PCR –RFLP technique. All the samples from all species resulted amplicons of 456 bp on PCR except in chicken we obtained 444 bp product. These amplicons further subjected to restriction digestion with five enzymes including AluI, HhaI, ApoI, BspTI and MboII, which resulted in speces specific restriction profiles which enable the identification. We were able to differenciate chicken and dog meat with AluI and MboII alone, whereas AluI, HhaI, ApoI, BspTI were specific to beef, buffalo meat, mutton and chevon respectively.