Technical note: Detection of cat, dog, and rat or mouse tissues in food and animal feed using species-specific polymerase chain reaction.

A PCR method based on the nucleotide sequence variation in the 12S ribosomal RNA, mitochondrial gene has been developed for the specific and qualitative detection and identification of cat, dog, and rat or mouse tissue in food and feedstuffs. The primers designed generated specific fragments of 108, 101, and 96 bp in length for cat, dog, and rat or mouse tissues, respectively. Specificity of the primers was tested against 32 nontarget species including mammals, birds, fish, and plant species. This PCR method allowed detection of raw and heated cat, dog, and rat or mouse tissues in meat/oats mixtures even when the concentration of the target species was reduced to 0.1%. Furthermore, the performance of the method was not affected by prolonged heat-treatment (up to 133 degrees C for 20 min at 300 kPa), and consequently, it could be very useful to verify the origin of raw materials in food and feedstuffs submitted to denaturing technologies, for which other methods cannot be applied.