ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF HONEY TO EMPHASIZE GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEQUENCES

Food safety and consumer health protection is a particularly important aspect, always in the attention of researchers. The authentication of honey, but also its mislabelling, is one of the current challenges related to quality monitoring. Therefore, a rigorous monitoring of the different types of honey on the market is required, to ascertain whether they are properly labeled and to detect the possible presence of modified genes. The aim of this study was to analyze honey samples, to identify the possible presence of genetically modified genes, using the technique based on DNA analysis, called real-time PCR. For this purpose, ten samples of honey were analyzed. DNA isolation was performed with Quick-DNATM Plant/Seed Miniprep kit. For identification a potential presence of the genetically modified genes in the honey samples it was used a real-time PCR kit – Xpert qDetect P-35S, T-NOS and P-FMV -DNA amplification kit, that allows detection by real-time PCR of specific DNA sequences from the 35S promoter, NOS terminator and/or FMV promoter present in total DNA previously purified from honey samples. The results showed that two honey samples – M2 and M3 contain genetically modified sequences. It can be concluded that these results illustrate the importance of honey quality monitoring for the effective detection of genetically modified organisms.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62838/abmj-2024-0005