Collaborative study: Detection of plant species in honey using real-time PCR

摘要

An objective of work package 3, of the Eu-ropean TRACE project ("Tracing the ori-gin of food"), was to develop a molecular biology based method for the identification of Corsican honey, a PDO (protected de-signation of origin) product. The methodrnwas designed to characterise the pollen profile of Corsican honey, thereby facilitating the detection of Substitution with non-Corsican honey.rnReal-time PCR Systems for the detection of sixteen honey relevant plant species were developed and validated in-house. Additionally, two further real-time PCR Systems for the detection of generic plant species were also established. When used in combination, these Systems had previ-ously been shown to produce a plant profile unique to Corsican honey, when com-pared to honey from Galicia, Germany and England, although the number of samples analysed was comparatively small and the locations relatively geographically remote from each other.