DNA Barcoding for Honey Biodiversity

Alice Valentini,Christian Miquel,Pierre Taberlet

doi:10.3390/d2040610

Abstract

Honey is produced by honeybees from nectar and from secretions of living plants. It reflects the honeybees’ diet and the local plant communities. Honey also shows different plant compositions in different geographical locations. We propose a new method for studying the plant diversity and the geographical origin of honey using a DNA barcoding approach that combines universal primers and massive parallel pyrosequencing. To test this method we use two commercial honeys, one from a regional origin and one composed of a worldwide mix of different honeys. We demonstrate that the method proposed here is fast, simple to implement, more robust than classical methods, and therefore suitable for analyzing plant diversity in honey.

Highlights

Honey is a natural sweet substance produced by honeybees from the nectar of plants, from secretions of living parts of plants, or from excretions of plant-sucking insects
The exact knowledge of honey composition is very important for human health and it has been demonstrated that Pyrrilizidine alkaloids (PA) can be found in honey and pollen products [10,11]
Results obtained for Pyrenean honey are consistent with expectations for a honey collected in a mountainous area

Summary

Introduction

Honey is a natural sweet substance produced by honeybees from the nectar of plants, from secretions of living parts of plants, or from excretions of plant-sucking insects. A recent study has demonstrated that molecular genetics can be used for analyzing the composition and geographical origin of honey [16]: the authors developed real-time PCR systems for detecting the different plant species commonly found in Corsican honey (acacia, linden, citrus, clover, heather, olive, rape, sunflower and rosemary). This method requires an a priori knowledge of the plant species that can be found, and must be adjusted according to the potential geographical origin. To test this method we analyzed two commercial honeys with a potentially complex composition, one from a regional origin (Pyrenean honey) and one composed of a worldwide mix of different honeys (wild flower honey)

Results and Discussion

Experimental Section

Data Analysis

Conclusions