The Ion Torrent platform was used for species identification in meat derived products from 6 libraries.

In this study, we tested the Ion Torrent next generation semiconductor based sequencing technology for meat species identification in several highly processed and complex meat products. The detection protocol included the sequencing of targeted mitochondrial DNA regions amplified with universal primer pairs and a bioinformatic pipeline designed to interpret sequencing results. Six libraries were sequenced producing a total of 1,363,351 filtered reads. Data mining detected expected and unexpected meat species in the analysed products. For products for which the precise meat species ingredients were not available, it was possible to obtain this information. Human contamination based on human detected reads could be useful to evaluate the hygienic level of highly processed products. Mitochondrial haplotypes (mitotypes) were identified for several mtDNA-species combinations providing another level of information useful for the authentication of meat derived products. This work defined a methodological framework to establish assays using this sequencing platform for routine species identification in complex and highly processed food.