摘要
Sea cucumbers are traditional marine food and Chinese medicine in Asia. The rapid expansion of sea cucumber market has resulted in various problems, such as commercial fraud and mislabeling. Conventionally, sea cucumber species could be distinguished by their morphological and anatomical characteristics; however, their identification becomes difficult when they are processed. The aim of this study was to develop a new convenient method of identifying and distinguishing sea cucumber species. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism(PCR-RFLP) analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene(COI) was used to identifing five sea cucumber species(Apostichopus japonicus, Cucumaria frondosa, Thelenota ananas, Parastichopus californicus and Actinopyga lecanora). A 692 bp fragment of COI was searched for BamHI, KpnI, PstI, XbaI and Eco31 I restriction sites with DNAMAN 6.0, which were then used to PCR-RFLP analysis. These five sea cucumber species can be discriminated from mixed sea cucumbers. The developed PCR-RFLP assay will facilitate the identification of sea cucumbers, making their source tracing and quality controlling feasible.
Sea cucumbers are traditional marine food and Chinese medicine in Asia. The rapid expansion of sea cucumber market has resulted in various problems, such as commercial fraud and mislabeling. Conventionally, sea cucumber species could be distinguished by their morphological and anatomical characteristics; however, their identification becomes difficult when they are processed. The aim of this study was to develop a new convenient method of identifying and distinguishing sea cucumber species. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism（PCR-RFLP） analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene（COI） was used to identifing five sea cucumber species（Apostichopus japonicus, Cucumaria frondosa, Thelenota ananas, Parastichopus californicus and Actinopyga lecanora）. A 692 bp fragment of COI was searched for BamHI, KpnI, PstI, XbaI and Eco31 I restriction sites with DNAMAN 6.0, which were then used to PCR-RFLP analysis. These five sea cucumber species can be discriminated from mixed sea cucumbers. The developed PCR-RFLP assay will facilitate the identification of sea cucumbers, making their source tracing and quality controlling feasible.
基金
supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31101281 and 31071525)
National Marine Public Welfare Scientific Research Project of China (No. 201105029)
