Serra da Estrela PDO cheese authentication: RAPD and SCAR approaches for identification of adulterant breed’s milk

摘要

Serra da Estrela cheese is a Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) product and is perceived as aunique high-quality food, being the most famous Portuguese cheese and presenting highcommercial value. It is legitimately manufactured from raw milk of the autochthonous sheepbreed Serra da Estrela; however, the adulteration of production with cheaper and/or lowerqualitymilks from non-autochthones ovine breeds compromises the quality of the final productand undervalues the original PDO cheese. Considering that these fraudulent productions may leadto serious problems at both social and economic levels, it is urgent to develop low-cost,sensitive, fast and reliable analytical techniques that efficiently allow traceability of the breedorigin of milk in Serra da Estrela PDO cheese. Here we describe a Randomly AmplifiedPolymorphic DNA (RAPD) method capable of efficient detection of adulterant breeds in milkmixtures, containing Serra da Estrela milk, used for fraudulent production of this cheese. Takingthis into account, we suggest RAPD to be a valuable tool for identification of sheep breed in afirst stage of milk authentication in dairy industry. Furthermore, considering the possibledegradation of DNA during milk processing, Sequence Characterized Amplified Region (SCAR)markers were designed envisioning the detection of milk adulteration in processed dairy foods.RAPD-SCAR techniques have been here used, for the first time, to identify breed origin in milksamples, establishing its applicability for quality control on dairy industry, being capable of milkauthentication in the final products. In this sense, our findings will play an important role on thevalorization of not only the Serra da Estrela PDO cheese, but also on other high-quality dairyproducts prone to adulteration, contributing to the further development of the dairy industry.