Differential Detection and Identification of Transgenic Tomato Solanum Lycopersicum by Multiplex PCR Technique in Tehran

Food industry has an important value all over the would. Tomatoes and it’s other products are one of the important agricultural products in food industry. Transgenic plants and seeds are one of the important achievements of modern biotechnology in field of agriculture that have captured a part of food marketing in recent years. Therefore, identify and examine whether transgenic agricultural products are transgenic or not, it is necessary because there are still many opinions for and against the use of these products in the world.

In this study, 10 types of tomatoes along with sepals were collected by simple sampling method from Tajrish bazaar, Shahrvand-e farmaniyeh, vegetable market East and West of Tehran and were examined. At first, P35S F/R, NOS-1/NOS-3, RBCLF/R and NPTǁ F/R primers were used. Nucleotide fragments were amplified respectively at 195bp and 180bp.

Amplified nucleotide fragments confirmed 100% similarity of the nucleotide sequence to the samples in the gene bank that the studied products were genetically engineered. Also, in order to identify transgenic tomatoes, aspecific PG F/R primer pair was used to amplify the antigens of polygalacturonase gene. All specimens that had P35S promoter band or NOS terminator, or both, amplified the 384bp band associated with part of the PG gene antisense, and found a 100% similarity in the gene sequence registered in the gene bank.

The results of this investigation showed that transgenic tomatoes exist in Iran’s market without consumer awareness.