FDA SCIENTIST WORKING TO CREATE DNA BAR-CODES TO IDENTIFY FISH SPECIES

FROM:  U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION 

Have you sometimes wondered if that "wild caught" salmon actually came from an aqua farm? Or if the "U.S. catfish" in the display case might have been born and raised in Vietnam?

Is that "red snapper" actually red snapper and worth the premium price?

Scientists at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are able to answer those questions through a project that creates DNA barcodes to identify individual fish species. The massive project is part of an effort aimed at solving the problem of species substitution.

Species substitution can result in cheap fish being labeled as pricy ones, but mislabeling can also threaten public health. For example, in 2007, a prohibited and highly toxic variety of puffer fish, also known as fugu or blowfish, was smuggled into the U.S. in boxes labeled as "headless monkfish." This deception resulted in illnesses in multiple states.

A series of cutting-edge tests must be conducted to create the barcodes, which look much like the lines of different thicknesses on Universal Product Code (UPC) labels used to identify and scan manufactured products. However, unlike the barcodes you see on packages in the supermarket, the barcodes that identify different fish species will not be attached to the fish.

Instead, once a fish species is identified through DNA testing and other high-tech techniques in FDA labs, the newly created barcode unique to that species is entered into a database, which could be thought of as a library or catalogue of commercial fish species.

When encountering a fish or fish product (fillets, fish sticks, sushi, etc.) whose species is unknown, inspectors with the equipment and know-how can create a barcode for that fish and compare it against FDA's database to seek a known match.

The agency has trained more than 20 FDA analysts around the country to use that procedure in many of its regional field laboratories and are now performing the analysis on a regular basis.