A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based method for the identification of beef by amplification of bovine 1.709 satellite DNA was established. The method not only was able to amplify raw beef DNA, but also cooked or autoclaved meat DNA. The sequence selected for amplification consisted of a 218 bp DNA fragment lying in the 1.709 satellite DNA of bovine. A pair of synthetic oligonucleotides flanking this sequence were used as printers, and genomic DNA extracted from beef samples employed as templates. Each batch of reaction mix contained Taq DNA polymerase, a buffer component, deoxynucleotide triphosphates, genomic DNA template and a pair of bovine oligodeoxynucleotide primers in a final volume of 50 µl. The amplification of bovine DNA was performed by using 33 cycles of denaturation at 94°C (40 s), annealing at 53.5°C (50 s) and extension at 72°C (60 s), with a 7 min extension at 72°C in the last cycles. The amplified products were subjected to rapid electrophoresis in 3% agarose gel and visualized under ultraviolet illumination after ethidium bromide staining. A Hae Ш restriction endonuclease test was done to verify the specificity of the PCR amplification, and the expected DNA fragments were produced. The specificity test demonstrated that this method was positive for bovine, buffalo and yak meat DNA, but negative for equine, sheep, goat, camel, swine, deer and mouse meat DNA, etc. At least 33.6 fg of DNA from raw beef samples and 0.32 pg of DNA from cooked or autoclaved beef samples were detected, respectively, by PCR. We tested 103 beef samples by PCR and obtained 100% correct identification. The method needed only 6 h for detection of meat products of all kinds. The results showed that the PCR method was sensitive, specific, convenient and rapid, so it may be suitable for rapid identification of beef.
