Development and Use of Quantitative Competitive PCR Assay for Detection of Poultry DNA in Sausage

Abstract

This study focused on the development and evaluation of a quantitative competitive polymerase chain reaction (QC-PCR) for detection and quantification of poultry DNA in sausage. PCR is well known to be quantitative if internal DNA standards are co-amplified together with the target DNA. A DNA competitor differing by 83 bp in length from the poultry target sequence was constructed and used for PCR together with the target DNA. Specificity of the new primers was evaluated with DNA from cattle and sheep. The results of QC-PCR showed that the percentage of contamination was in the range of 23.87–52.06%.