Investigation of major ingredients of premium hamburgers with their labels in Tehran city by molecular analysis

Given the increasing consumption of meat products such as hamburger in large cities such as Tehran، quality control of these products is important. Because of increasing cost of red meat and difficult detection of adulteration in ground meat the replacement of red meat with cheaper proteins (plant proteins) in these products is clearly possible. So the aim of this study was to investigate the validity of labeling in premium hamburgers made of beef and detection of soybean protein as commercial fraud in premium hamburgers of Tehran city by sensitive and quick PCR method. 10 specified brands of premium hamburgers made of beef were collected from markets in Tehran city. DNA was extracted from raw beef، plant soybean protein as control samples and premium hamburgers. Then specific PCR was performed by species-specific soybean and beef primers. 118bp and 27 bp length fragments were amplified in all samples from soybean lectin gene and mitochondrial cytochrome b gene respectively. The results indicated the application of soybean in premium hamburgers unlike their labels.