Blue Economy and Biodiversity Surveillance: Fish Caviar Substitute Rapid Discrimination

The species identification is a key problem throughout the life cycle of fishes: from eggs and larvae to adults in ecosystem and fisheries research and control, as well as processed fish products labelling in consumer protection. Here, we report a rapid blue biotechnological method applied for egg and fish species discrimination. The amplification of a region of the mitochondrial genome, the cytochrome b, by using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) permits marine aquatic species identification. The obtained PCR-products were cut with different restriction endonucleases resulting in species-specific Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms (RFLP), which allowed to discriminate, in one step, between different types of caviar substitute species. The following analysis of mitochondrial DNA to control the labelling between caviar substitute species of Cyclopterus lumpus, Mallotus villosus, Trisopterus minutus minutus and the caviar, Acipenser baerii and their monitoring and surveillance is suitable with only one restriction enzyme, MboII. This blue method, applied to a very significant number of samples, retrieved online, allowed a rapid and economic identification of the species, with high percentage of correct identification for fish caviar substitute.