CHIANG MAI UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF NATURAL SCIENCES

Volume 18, No. 04, Month OCTOBER, Year 2019, Pages 461 - 478

Partial sequence analysis of cytochrome b gene by fins technique reveals fraud sambar meat in wild food restaurant

Thanat Vorajinda, Chavin Chaisongkram, Wibhu Kutanan and Khemika Lomthaisong

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Species identification of animals in the Cervidae by sequence comparison of the Cytochrome b (Cyt b) gene using FINS method is focused in this study. The Cyt b fragments of seven species in the Cervidae, including rusa deer (Cervus timorensis), sambar deer (C. unicolor), sika deer (C. nippon), hog deer (C. porcinus), axis deer (C. axis), Eld’s deer (C. eldi) and barking deer (Munticacus muntjak) were amplified by our own designed primers. The amplicons (322 bp) were sequenced and their partial sequences (263 bp) were then analyzed. Barking deer showed the highest value of genetic diversity within species (π = 0.0364; h = 0.9). The phylogenetic analysis had shown that the partial sequence of Cyt b gene can be used to classify most studied species in Cervidae accurately, except for sambar and rusa deer that cannot be differentiated. Hence, species identification of unknown meat samples was then performed by this method. Referenced Cyt b sequences of wild boar (Sus scrofa), favorite meat in wild food restaurant, and the Cyt b sequence of known sambar tissue samples were additionally compared. The genetic distances indicated that unknown meat samples were presumably wild boar. Although this method cannot differentiate sambar from rusa deer, this study will be useful for wildlife forensic particularly when screening examination of irrelevant samples and fraud sambar meats identification are necessary.

Keywords

Cytochrome b gene, DNA variation, Cervidae, FINS

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