Authentication of “mono-breed” pork products: Identification of a coat colour gene marker in Cinta Senese pigs useful to this purpose

• Cinta Senese is a local Italian pig breed with a belted coat colour.
• The value of its meat production chain should be protected from frauds.
• We analysed the KIT gene to identify a suitable DNA marker for this purpose.
• A single nucleotide polymorphism (g.43597545C>T) was almost fixed in Cinta Senese.
• Probability to correctly assign an unknown meat sample to Cinta Senese was ~1.00.

The possibility to authenticate food products is crucial to defend local livestock production chains from frauds. Cinta Senese is an autochthonous pig breed reared under extensive or semi-extensive management systems, mainly in the Tuscany (Italy). A Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) brand for Cinta Senese meat was recently obtained. The breed is characterised by a typical black with a white-belted coat colour pattern. We analysed a coat colour gene (KIT) to identify a DNA marker that could be useful for Cinta Senese meat product authentication. An informative single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) was identified among different KIT gene haplotypes that were obtained from several pigs of different breeds. This SNP (g.43597545C>T; position on porcine chromosome 8 in the Sscrofa10.2 genome assembly) was genotyped by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) in 631 animals of 11 different pig breeds and one wild boar population. Allele T was almost fixed in Cinta Senese (95.9%) and absent in many breeds and was considered the tag SNP of the belted allele. Probability to correctly assign an unknown meat sample to Cinta Senese was 0.97–1.00. This DNA marker can be useful to distinguish meat of Cinta Senese pigs from meat of non-belted pigs. Thus, it could be an important tool not only to defend Cinta Senese pork chain from frauds but also to design breeding plans to eliminate non belted alleles from this pig population.

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