Restrictions on the use of meat and bone meal (MBM) as a feed ingredient we
re introduced by the European Commission as a result of the BSE crisis. Thi
s paper describes the development of species specific PCR assays to detect
bovine, ovine, porcine and poultry species content in MBM. A simple lysis b
ased extraction procedure and a commercial DNA extraction kit were evaluate
d using simulated samples of rendered material for performance in terms of
yielding DNA that is amenable to PCR amplification. From a small cohort of
commercially produced samples (n = 7) the application of species specific P
CR assays was used to determine the species content of these samples return
ing an accuracy of 72.5 and 60% for the two selected extraction procedures.
Using the simple lysis method, with single species rendered material, a in
clusion rate of 0.3% for the bovine and ovine primers and 1% for the porcin
e primers in MBM containing another reference species was detectable. (C) 2
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