SPECIES IDENTIFICATION OF FRESH AND COOKED MEAT BASED ON PCR-RFLP TECHNIQUE*

Adulteration of higher quality meat with cheaper or inferior quality meat is prevalent in the meat industry. Identification of meat from closely related meat species based on morphological features of meat is very difficult and it becomes even worse if meat is cooked or processed. The present study investigated the use of polymerase chain reaction- restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (PCRRFLP) of the mitochondrial cytochrome b (cyt-b) gene sequence for identification of fresh and pressure-cooked meats of cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat and pig. PCR amplification yielded a 609 bp fragments from both fresh as well as pressure cooked meat of all these species. The amplicons were digested with TaqI and AluI restriction enzymes, resulting a pattern that could identify and differentiate each of above species. Pressure cooking of meat did not affect the RFLP patterns of above species