Botanical Origin Authenticity Control of Pine Pollen Food Products Using Multiplex Species-Specific PCR Method

Pine pollen has been widely recognized for its comprehensive nutritional properties and health benefits, but it has also been the target of fraudulent practices. Accurate authentication of pine pollen throughout the production chain is thus of great importance to quality and safety control of pine pollen food products. Aiming at the adverse effects of excipients and DNA degradation during processes, a pretreatment method including dissolution and centrifugation steps was incorporated in DNA extraction, and the chloroplast trnL-F region was used to establish a multiplex species-specific PCR assay. The developed assay could detect 1% of intentional adulteration of cattail pollen or corn flour into pine pollen down to 0.01 ng level of template DNA and was proved to be effective for botanical origin authentication of commercial pine pollen food products. Therefore, the present study provides a simple and sensitive approach for quality control and safety monitoring of commercial pine pollen food products, and the methodology can be applied in botanical origin authenticity control of other pollen products.