Investigating the amount of fraud in the production of canned tuna using the DNA barcoding method in Iran

Nowadays, the mixing of low-quality species in canned products, especially in fishery products, is considered as one of the most important problems of monitoring some food industry production units. Among the new methods of detecting counterfeits, genetic methods such as DNA barcoding have high accuracy and precision. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the fraud in canned Iranian tuna fish produced using DNA barcoding, by cytochrome oxidase 1 detector. In this research, canned tuna stuffed with one piece of meat and canned tuna stuffed with chopped meat from different brands available in the market were collected from different regions of the country. The samples after DNA extraction and optimizing its process, were subjected to PCR by cytochrome oxidas 1 gene and then sequenced. The results of the sequencing showed that out of 100 canned samples examined, 80 samples have 97% genetic similarity to the fish listed on the can label, 18 samples have 90% genetic similarity to short fish. (Sillaginidae), and 3 samples belonged to 3 different fish species. Among these, only 3 samples were related to canned tuna prepared from one piece of meat. The results showed that this method is very useful due to its high speed and accuracy, for canned fish, where DNA parts may be lost during the canning process and it can be used to check the amounts of fraud in processed foods are recommended.