Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Honey is the natural sweet substance produced by Apis mellifera honeybees in Europe. Depending on the
country/region, the A. mellifera subspecies native to Europe belong to three different lineages: A (A. m. iberiensis),
M (A. m. iberiensis and A. m. mellifera) and C (A. m. ligustica and A. m. carnica). In this work, two DNAbased
approaches were developed with the aim of entomological authentication of European honeys. A cytb
specific PCR assay was proposed to identify A-lineage honeybees, while a second method based on real-time PCR
coupled to high resolution melting analysis targeting the COI gene was developed to differentiate C- and Mlineages
honeybees. The proposed methodologies were validated successfully with honeys of known origin and
applied to the entomological authentication of 20 commercial samples from different European countries. The
results highlight the predominance of honeys from C-lineage honeybees in Europe, except in Iberian Peninsula
countries (honey from A-lineage honeybees).
Description
Keywords
Apis mellifera subspecies Authenticity Honey Honeybee DNA HRM analysis
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Soares, SĂłnia; Grazina, Liliana; Mafra, Isabel; Costa, Joana; Pinto, M. Alice; Oliveira, M. Beatriz P.P.; Amaral, Joana S. (2019). Towards honey authentication: Differentiation of Apis mellifera subspecies in European honeys based on mitochondrial DNA markers. Food Chemistry. ISSN 0308-8146. 283, p. 294-301