mericon Ingredient Authentication Assay

mericon Ingredient Authentication Assays are a suite of kits for target-specific authentication of food and animal feed ingredients and certain pharmaceutical product components of animal and plant origin. All of the assays use the same real-time PCR-based protocol. They are part of the comprehensive QIAGEN food safety testing portfolio, which also features dedicated sample preparation kits, and assays for pathogen DNA detection. mericon assays perform optimally on the Rotor-Gene Q, but have also been validated for block thermal cyclers.

mericon Cattle Kit

The mericon Cattle Kit is for the detection of matter of cattle origin in food and animal feed. It can detect as few as 10 copies of the target DNA in a reaction and it exhibits high specificity for cattle DNA. In an experiment using 50 ng of tested DNA, no cross-reactivity was observed with matter from other animal and plant species, including water buffalo (see the table "Results of mericon Cattle Kit cross-reactivity study").

mericon Chicken Kit

The mericon Chicken Kit is for the detection of matter of chicken origin in food and animal feed. It can detect as few as 10 copies of the target DNA in a reaction and it exhibits high specificity for chicken DNA. In an experiment using 50 ng of tested DNA, no cross-reactivity was observed with matter from other animal and plant species (see the table "Results of mericon Chicken Kit cross-reactivity study").

mericon Horse Kit

The mericon Horse Kit is for the detection of horse matter in food or animal feed. It can detect as few as 10 copies of the target DNA in a reaction and it exhibits high specificity for horse and donkey. No cross-reactivity was observed with other plant or animal species, using 50 ng of the tested DNA (see the table "Results of mericon Horse Kit cross-reactivity study").

mericon Ruminant Kit

The mericon Ruminant Kit is for the detection of ruminant matter in food or animal feed. It can detect as few as 10 copies of the target DNA in a reaction and it exhibits high specificity for ruminants. No cross-reactivity was observed with other plant or animal species, using 50 ng of the tested DNA (see the table "Results of mericon Ruminant Kit cross-reactivity study").

mericon Sheep Kit

The mericon Sheep Kit is for the detection of sheep matter in food or animal feed. It can detect as few as 10 copies of the target DNA in a reaction and it exhibits high specificity for sheep. No cross-reactivity was observed with other plant or animal species, using 50 ng of the tested DNA (see the table "Results of mericon Sheep Kit cross-reactivity study").

Authenticating ingredients in food testing using real-time PCR is based on the amplification of a specific region of the relevant target genome. The amplified product is detected using target-specific fluorescent probes that bind to the amplified product. As the PCR product accumulates, there is an increased fluorescent signal from the bound probes. Monitoring the fluorescence intensities during the PCR run (i.e., in real time) allows the detection of the accumulating PCR product without having to re-open the reaction tubes after the PCR run. The detection of target DNA confirms ingredient authenticity or prevents food fraud, ethical issues or health concerns.

mericon PCR Assays include an internal control to control potential inhibition. This aids in the straightforward interpretation of the results (see the table "Summary of possible PCR outcomes").

DNA is extracted from a sample of food or animal feed using a dedicated sample preparation kit. QIAGEN's DNeasy mericon Food Kit is suitable for a whole range of food matrices, including those with high inhibitor contents.

The isolated, pure DNA is assayed using a streamlined real-time PCR protocol that returns results in 82 minutes on QIAGEN's Rotor-Gene Q. The protocol has also been validated for use on other thermal block cyclers.

The results are displayed as easy-to-interpret PCR curves.

mericon Ingredient Authentication Assays are for real-time PCR-based detection of DNA segments from specific animal or plant material in food, animal feed, and pharmaceutical products.