DNA barcoding as new diagnostic tool to lethal plant poisoning in herbivorous mammals.

Reliable identification of plant species in the digestive tract of a deceased animal often represents the major key to diagnose a lethal intoxication with poisonous plants in veterinary pathology. In many cases, identification of the species is challenging or even impossible because the diagnostic morphological features have been degraded, and because the interpretation of such features requires a considerable expertise in plant anatomy and biodiversity. The use of DNA barcoding markers can support or even replace classical morphological assessment.

Benchmarking and Validation of a Bioinformatics Workflow for Meat Species Identification Using 16S rDNA Metabarcoding.

DNA-metabarcoding is becoming more widely used for routine authentication of meat-based food and feed products. Several methods validating species identification methods through amplicon sequencing have already been published. These use a variety of barcodes and analysis workflows, however, no methodical comparison of available algorithms and parameter optimization are published hitherto for meat-based products' authenticity.

The Barcoding Table of Animal Species (BaTAnS): a new tool to select appropriate methods for animal species identification using DNA barcoding.

Food and feed products derived from animal materials have a long history of being adulterated. Methods for the identification of animal samples based on DNA barcoding are very potent tools to reveal species substitution. Since numerous DNA barcoding methods are available for different taxa, it is challenging to choose an appropriate and verified method for each sample in question.

Results of an International Interlaboratory Trial to Determine Twelve Allergens Using Real-time PCR- and ELISA-based Assays.

To elucidate the capability of laboratories to determine allergen contents, an international interlaboratory trial was conducted using meat products spiked with 12 allergens. The measurement uncertainty was calculated independent of the applied method simulating realistic situations when comparing analysis certificates from different laboratories. The measurement uncertainty was revealed to be in the best cases +/-100%, in the worst cases quantification exhibited a measurement uncertainty of higher than 200% making quantitative analysis impossible.

Bite through the tent.

The authors report on a young boy who was bitten into his face by an unknown animal while being asleep in a tent. Given the bite marks and the location of the scene, members of the mustelidae and canidae families were the first "suspects." Deoxyribunucleic acid (DNA) recovered from the tent's wall was analyzed with regard to parts of the mitochondrial 12S ribosomal ribunucleic acid (12S rRNA) and cytochrome b (cytb) genes as well as nuclear short tandem repeats (STRs).

A practical approach to screen for authorised and unauthorised genetically modified plants.

In routine analysis, screening methods based on real-time PCR are most commonly used for the detection of genetically modified (GM) plant material in food and feed. In this paper, it is shown that the combination of five DNA target sequences can be used as a universal screening approach for at least 81 GM plant events authorised or unauthorised for placing on the market and described in publicly available databases. Except for maize event LY038, soybean events DP-305423 and BPS-CV127-9 and cotton event 281-24-236 x 3006-210-23, at least one of the five genetic elements has been inserted in these GM plants and is targeted by this screening approach.