Using DNA barcoding for animal speciation in food testing laboratories is common practice these days. The challenge of this type of food authentication is to select the appropriate methods and primers. Currently, there is still a gap: which species can be detected when a certain set of primers is used. This is often not clear. To eliminate this uncertainty is even more important for a government laboratory.
In Germany, the government, more specifically the Federal Agency for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, has several working groups dealing with all facets of food safety and authenticity issues, including mycotoxins, pesticides, veterinary drug residues, vitamins and flavours. The authenticity of plant and animal species is dealt with by the working group “Molecular biological methods for plant and animal species differentiation”, chaired by Claudia Brünen-Nieweler from the State Institute for Chemical and Veterinary Analysis Münster-Emscher-Lippe.
This working group took the initiative to develop a database containing existing methods, their validation status, and grouped them by animal categories. Our core development team was led by the unwavering Nele Matthes from State Office for Agriculture, Food Safety and Fishery. Our other team members were Klaus Pietsch from the State Institute for Chemical and Veterinary Analysis Freiburg, Anke Rullmann from the State Institute for Chemical and Veterinary Analysis Karlsruhe, Gabriele Näumann from the Institute for Hygiene and Environment Hamburg, Kathrin Szabo from the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety and myself, Bert Popping from FOCOS – Food Consulting Strategically.
In a work that lasted several months, our team developed this tool to provide a resource for researchers allowing them to ensure the primers they use are fit-for-purpose. The tool is now ready to use and it is free of charge. We named it BaTAnS, the acronym for Barcoding Table of Animal Species.
The article describing the functionality of the tool as well as a link to its location can be found in the article published earlier this month (July 2020) by Matthes et. al., The Barcoding Table of Animal Species (BaTAnS): a new tool to select appropriate, methods for animal species identification using DNA barcoding, Molecular Biology Reports: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11033-020-05675-1
© 2020 Feature Image Composition: Carmen Diaz-Amigo
