Preliminary multi analytical approach to address geographic traceability at the intraspecific level in Scombridae family

ABSTRACT

Globalization of seafood product marketing caused the increase of request of an effective fish traceability that enhances the consumer confidence in food safety. In this study, an integrated multi analytical approach based on two different and independent analytical techniques (carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes and fatty acids analysis) was applied in order to identify different fish species and trace their geographical provenience. The investigation was focused on four species (Thunnus thynnus, Thunnus alalunga, Auxis rochei and Scomber scombrus) belonging to the Scombridae family. The DNA barcoding method confirmed genus and species for S. scombrus and A. rochei, but only genus for T. alalunga and T. thynnus. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes results evidenced different fish diets and trophic positions, whereas fatty acids analysis displayed that the unsaturated prevailed (∼60 %) over the saturated compounds with a variation among the species and the geographical area in particular for docosahexaenoic and eicosapentaenoic acids percentage. The principal component analysis applied to stable isotopes and fatty acids evidenced a good discrimination among species and their geographical catching area. This multi-disciplinary analytical approach could represent a promising tool to identify the commercial fish and trace their origin in order to guarantee the health of consumers.

KEYWORDS:

• Analytical methods
• carbon-13
• DNA barcoding
• fatty acids
• fish traceability
• nitrogen-15
• Scombridae fish family
• tuna

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Francesca Ellero for manuscript editing. The authors are grateful to Umberto Traldi and Guido Giazzi from Thermo Fischer Scientific for analytical support and to Maria Grazia Finoia from ISPRA for the help and support in the statistical analyses. We thank Malgorzata Marcelina Formalewicz for help in the sample preparation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.