APPROCCIO BIOMOLECOLARE PER L’IDENTIFICAZIONE DI SPECIE DI UNA TRANCIA DI PESCE

Part of the cytocrome b (cyt. b) and 16SrRNA genes were sequenced to identify afrozen fish steak labelled as “cernia ruvetto”(R. pretiosus), common name “oil fish”.Authenticated individual of R. pretiosus wasused as reference: undoubtful identificationwas done by morphology. Consumption ofthis species has been reported to have purgativeeffects in some consumers, and thetrade of R. pretiosus and other related speciesin Italy is forbidden.Alignment of the obtained sequences withthose available in GenBank data base wascarried out with BLASTn and genetic distanceswere calculated using the Tamura-Nai model. Reference oil fish showed 100%homology with sequence of R. pretiosusavailable in GenBank, while unknown sampleachieved the highest homology withLepidocibium flavobrunneum (97%).This approach is rapid and offers the potentialto detect fraudulent or unintentionalmislabelling of seafood. For an unambiguousanswer to the question of similarity andintra-species polymorphisms, further authenticatedindividuals of different geographicorigin should be investigated and agreater number of species shoulds be sequencedso as to apply the test as a routineseafood authentication analysis.[...]