Articles
VARIETAL TRACEABILITY IN ALMOND PRODUCTS BY SSR (SIMPLE SEQUENCE REPEAT) MARKERS
Article number
1028_41
Pages
255 – 258
Language
English
Abstract
Traceability in food is a recently developed concept of control of the whole chain of food production and marketing that traces back to each step of the process.
The traceability of the varietal origin of almond products could be an important aspect for their protection, mainly in the case of the protected Alicante and Jijona nougat.
However, it should be noted in many cases the difficulty in the identification of the varietal origin of kernels in the transformed products by visual observation or chemical analysis.
Studies on kernel identification by DNA markers can greatly improve the efficiency of the quality control clearly identifying almond kernels from different cultivars.
Among the existing DNA markers, the microsatellite markers (Simple Sequence Repeat, SSR) have been described as the best genetic markers for a wide range of plants because of their high polymorphism, abundance and codominant nature.
The aim of this work was to assess, by Metaphor® agarose electrophoresis of SSR markers, the different almond cultivars included in the different transformed almond products such as peeled fresh kernels, roasted kernels, hard nougat and soft nougat.
After the application of specific SSR protocols, the quality of DNA present in almond kernel from the different products assayed for PCR analysis has been reported.
However, low concentration and DNA degradation were the main handicaps and they should be taken into consideration when comparing the amplification of SSR profiles of leaves with the corresponding transformed products for varietal traceability purposes.
The results show that the application of SSR markers, coupled with the visual observation of kernels in the case of peeled fresh kernels, roasted kernels and hard nougat, can characterize and identify the origin of kernels.
The traceability of the varietal origin of almond products could be an important aspect for their protection, mainly in the case of the protected Alicante and Jijona nougat.
However, it should be noted in many cases the difficulty in the identification of the varietal origin of kernels in the transformed products by visual observation or chemical analysis.
Studies on kernel identification by DNA markers can greatly improve the efficiency of the quality control clearly identifying almond kernels from different cultivars.
Among the existing DNA markers, the microsatellite markers (Simple Sequence Repeat, SSR) have been described as the best genetic markers for a wide range of plants because of their high polymorphism, abundance and codominant nature.
The aim of this work was to assess, by Metaphor® agarose electrophoresis of SSR markers, the different almond cultivars included in the different transformed almond products such as peeled fresh kernels, roasted kernels, hard nougat and soft nougat.
After the application of specific SSR protocols, the quality of DNA present in almond kernel from the different products assayed for PCR analysis has been reported.
However, low concentration and DNA degradation were the main handicaps and they should be taken into consideration when comparing the amplification of SSR profiles of leaves with the corresponding transformed products for varietal traceability purposes.
The results show that the application of SSR markers, coupled with the visual observation of kernels in the case of peeled fresh kernels, roasted kernels and hard nougat, can characterize and identify the origin of kernels.
Authors
P. Martínez-Gómez, R. Sánchez-Pérez, T. Paredes, F. Dicenta
Keywords
almond, Prunus dulcis, molecular identification, quality control, traceability molecular markers, SSR
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