Detection and identification of marine fish mislabeling in Guangzhou's
supermarkets and sushi restaurants using DNA barcoding
Abstract
In this study, DNA barcoding was applied to identify the exact species
of fish products from Guangzhou supermarkets and sushi restaurants and
to check if these products are correctly labeled. Different samples were
analyzed using mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase subunit I (COI) gene
as the target. Our results showed that the CO I gene of all 139 samples
examined were successfully amplified by PCR. However when sequenced, 30
samples (21.58%) were mislabeled, in which all the products labeled
with “snapper” were actually the low-cost “tilapia”; 11 samples
could not be identified (7.91%) and 4 samples failed (2.88%). We also
found that the proper label for fish products in sushi restaurants was
higher than that in supermarkets. As a simple, rapid and efficient
technology, DNA barcoding can be widely used for species identification
of fish products. Our work shows that regulation on the labelling of
fish products in Guangzhou is needed.