Species origin of milk in Italian mozzarella and Greek feta cheese

Several animal species such as cattle, goats, sheep, and water buffalo prov ide milk for dairy products. We describe a simple procedure for detecting t he species origin of milk used for cheese production, DNA was isolated from Italian mozzarella or Greek feta by sequential organic extractions and res in purification. This DNA was analyzed by polymerase chain reaction-restric tion fragment length polymorphism as described previously for meat samples. This procedure differentiated mozzarella made from water buffalo milk and from less expensive bovine milk and also feta cheeses made from bovine, ovi ne, and caprine milk.