Rapid Origin Determination of the Northern Mauxia Shrimp (Acetes chinensis) Based on Allele Specific Polymerase Chain Reaction of Partial Mitochondrial 16S rRNA Gene

Acetes chinensis is an economically important shrimp that belongs to the Sergestidae family; following fermentation, A. chinensis′ economic value, however, is low in China, and much of the catch in China is exported to Korea at a low price, thus leading to potential false labeling. For this reason, we developed a simple method to identify A. chinensis′ origin using allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Ten single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified from partial (i.e., 570 bp) DNA sequence analysis of the mitochondrial 16s rRNA gene in 96 Korean and 96 Chinese individual shrimp. Among 10 SNP sites, four sites were observed in populations from both countries, and two sites located in the middle with SNP sites at their 3′-ends were used to design allele-specific primers. Among the eight internal primers, the C220F primer specific to the Chinese A. chinensis population amplified a DNA fragment of 364 bp only from that population. We were able to identify the A. chinensis population origin with 100% accuracy using multiplex PCR performed with two external primers and C220F primers. These results show that the 16S rRNA gene that is generally used for the identification of species can be used for the identification of the origin within species of A. chinensis, which is an important finding for the fair trade of the species between Korea and China.