Analysis of Pig DNA Contamination in Beef Hamburger and Meatball Samples using Primer Cytochrome B using The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Method

Abstract

A food can be said to be halal and permissible in Islamic law if the food is free from pork contamination. Pork contamination usually occurs in meat-based foods. Beef hamburgers and meatballs are foods made with meat as a base. This study aims to detect whether there is pork DNA contamination in beef hamburgers and pork DNA contamination in beef meatballs, chicken meatballs, and fish meatballs circulating in the city of Makassar using the PCR ( Polymerase Chain Reaction ) method. PCR is an in vitro DNA synthesis and amplification technique that is capable of producing results in a short time, has high sensitivity, and can be used for testing and DNA manipulation. This study used fresh pork as a positive control and fresh beef as a negative control, as well as 4 kinds of beef hamburger samples and 8 kinds of meatball samples taken from supermarkets and traditional markets. There are three stages in the PCR process, namely denaturation at 95°C, annealing at 50°C, and extension at 72°C. The amplification was carried out for 30 cycles, the PCR amplification results used a pig specific primer, namely cyt b gene which showed that of the four beef hamburger meat samples analyzed, it was suspected that there was contamination of pork DNA from one of the samples while the eight meatball samples circulating in the northern part of Makassar city were suspected There were two samples containing pork DNA, namely beef meatball b and fish meatball samples which were marked by visible bands in UV light on the amplification results. From the results of this study it can be concluded that it is necessary to carry out further testing of samples suspected of containing pork DNA.