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COI Metabarcoding as a Novel Approach for Assessing the Honey Bee Source of European Honey

2025Journal article Open access
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datacite.subject.fosCiências Agrárias::Agricultura, Silvicultura e Pescas
datacite.subject.sdg15:Proteger a Vida Terrestre
dc.contributor.authorHonrado, Mónica
dc.contributor.authorQuaresma, Andreia
dc.contributor.authorHenriques, Dora
dc.contributor.authorPinto, M. Alice
dc.contributor.authorAmaral, Joana S.
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-07T14:18:15Z
dc.date.available2025-04-07T14:18:15Z
dc.date.issued2025
dc.description.abstractHoney is a widely consumed food product frequently subjected to adulteration, with the mislabeling of its botanical or geographical origin being one of the most common practices. Determining the entomological origin of honey is particularly challenging but of high relevance for ensuring its authenticity, especially for products with protected designation of origin (PDO) labels. This study presents a novel DNA metabarcoding approach targeting a highly informative 406 bp fragment of the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene to differentiate among the three major mitochondrial lineages (A, M, and C) of honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) native to Europe. The target region was selected based on the calculated fixation index (FST), which is frequently used in Population Genetics as a measure of differentiation between populations. The approach was validated with 11 honey samples of known entomological origin and applied to 44 commercial honeys from 13 countries. The approach demonstrated high sensitivity, accurately identifying the entomological origin of honey, including samples produced by honey bees of varying ancestries, which could not be resolved by previous methods based on real-time PCR coupled with high-resolution melting (PCR-HRM) analysis. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of COI metabarcoding in verifying honey authenticity and highlight the predominance of C-lineage honey bees in the production of commercial honeys from northwestern Europe. This finding suggests a limited presence of the native M-lineage ancestry, underscoring the need for conservation efforts.eng
dc.description.sponsorshipThe authors are grateful to Bruno Martins (Fenapícola and Capemel) and Dinis Silva for the Portuguese reference honeys, Antonio Nanetti (CREA-AA) for the Italian reference honeys, and António Pajuelo (Pajuelo Consultores Apícolas S.L.) for the Spanish reference honeys
dc.identifier.citationHonrado, Mónica Gabriela dos Santos; Quaresma, Andreia; Henriques, Dora; Pinto, Maria Alice; Amaral, Joana A. (2025). COI Metabarcoding as a Novel Approach for Assessing the Honey Bee Source of European Honey. International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition. ISSN 2304-8158. 14:3, p. 1-15
dc.identifier.doi10.3390/foods14030419
dc.identifier.issn2304-8158
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10198/34399
dc.language.isoeng
dc.peerreviewedyes
dc.publisherMDPI
dc.relation.ispartofFoods
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectEntomologic origin
dc.subjectApis mellifera
dc.subjectMtDNA
dc.subjectNA metabarcoding
dc.subjectHoney
dc.subjectCOI gene
dc.titleCOI Metabarcoding as a Novel Approach for Assessing the Honey Bee Source of European Honeyeng
dc.typejournal article
dspace.entity.typePublication
oaire.citation.endPage15
oaire.citation.issue3
oaire.citation.startPage1
oaire.citation.titleFoods
oaire.citation.volume14
oaire.versionhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85
person.familyNameHonrado
person.familyNameQuaresma
person.familyNameHenriques
person.familyNamePinto
person.familyNameAmaral
person.givenNameMónica
person.givenNameAndreia
person.givenNameDora
person.givenNameM. Alice
person.givenNameJoana S.
person.identifier.ciencia-id4712-B40B-4B0E
person.identifier.ciencia-id4F1A-4E4A-3F23
person.identifier.ciencia-id291F-986F-07DA
person.identifier.ciencia-idF814-A1D0-8318
person.identifier.ciencia-id5319-7DE8-BEDA
person.identifier.orcid0000-0002-5126-4693
person.identifier.orcid0000-0002-8678-5800
person.identifier.orcid0000-0001-7530-682X
person.identifier.orcid0000-0001-9663-8399
person.identifier.orcid0000-0002-3648-7303
person.identifier.scopus-author-id57119742600
person.identifier.scopus-author-id55761737300
person.identifier.scopus-author-id8085507800
relation.isAuthorOfPublication87f8840d-04b1-427a-bca9-d37eadfc0e9b
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relation.isAuthorOfPublication42be2cf4-adc4-4e7f-ac60-7aab515b38cd
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery87f8840d-04b1-427a-bca9-d37eadfc0e9b

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