A duplex polymerase chain reaction for the quantitative detection of cows’ milk in goats’ milk cheese

Abstract

A duplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been applied for the detection of both cows’ and goats’ milk in goats’ milk cheeses using primers targeting the mitochondrial 12S rRNA genes. By means of a linear normalised calibration curve between the log of the ratio of the cows’ band intensity and the sum of cows’ and goats’ intensities vs. the log of cows’ milk percentage, it was possible to quantify cheese adulteration with cows’ milk in the range of 1–60%. The duplex PCR technique allowed the detection of 0.1% of cows’ milk in goats’ milk cheese. The proposed method was successfully applied to cheeses with defined amounts of cows’ milk and to 15 of a total of 17 commercial cheese samples. The results showed the fraudulent addition of cows’ milk in three samples labelled as pure goats’ milk cheeses and the omission of goats’ milk mentioned on the label of two cheeses containing mixed milk.