Study On The Application Of Representative Characteristics Recognition Technology In Authentication Of Edible Bird’s Nest

Edible bird’s nest (EBN) is a kind of nests constructed by the swiftlet of Aerodramus genus and other closely related species, which mainly inhabited in Southest Asia countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippine, Vietnam. EBN has been regarded as a precious and valuable medical food for a long time. In recent years, the EBN comsumption has been growing. Driven by huge profits, a large number of EBNs with unidentified origins are input in an improper way by immoral retailers. The status of EBN quality and safety in market is unoptimistic and the phenomenon of adulteration in EBN with cheap materials is severe. On the other hand, the prices of EBNs with different geographic origin or production mode are various with huge profits, resulting in the severe phenomenon of shoddy. Nevertheless, the lack of related product certification system and traceability supervision system incur such phenomenons of unfair competition as ambiguous origin labeling and origin mislabeling, which seriously destroy the benefits of consumers and EBN enterprises. Therefore, it is urgent to strengthen the quality detection of EBN products and develop the rapid and accurate method for identifying adulterants from EBNs and the origin of EBNs.This paper studied on the method for authenticating EBNs and discriminating the EBN origins (geographic origin and production mode). The specific studies are as follows:1. In order to meet the requirement of rapid quality detection for EBN products, infrared spectroscopy was utilized to detect EBNs with different origins, the separate samples of EBN and adulterants and the mixed samples of both. The obtained infrared spectra data were conducted by Principle Component Analysis and a discrimination model for authentication of EBNs was preliminarily established. The model could be used for screening the adulterated EBNs with the quantity of adulterants above30%(w/w). However, it failed to distinguish the specific adulterant component from the adulterated EBNs with white fungus or agar. The results showed that infrared spectroscopy could be effectively used for rapid screening of EBN authentication and preliminary monitoring of EBN quality.2. In order to accurately detect the adulterant ingredients in EBNs, nucleic acid was selected as the object, and specific primers and probe for EBN and adulterant components were screened and designed to establish the method of the real-time PCR and suspension bead array based on the molecular biology. The detection results of commercial EBN samples suggested that the established real-time PCR and suspension bead array with high sensitivity can be used for accurately identifying the adulterant ingredients in EBN products.3. In order to study on the discrimination method of EBN origins, the protein was selected as the object and SDS-PAGE was used for analyzing the proteins in different EBN samples. Then multivariate analysis was conducted based on the obtained data from protein bands and points, and finally the discriminant model was preliminarily established for the determination of geographic origin and production mode for EBNs. Then two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) was utilized to compare the proteomes of different EBNs and the protein points representing different production modes or geographic origins were screened out, which lays a foundation for subsequent protein identification by mass spectrum.In summary, this study combined such three technologies as the infrared detection, genetic testing and protein analysis technique for preliminarily establishing a comprehensive set of quality detection system for EBN products based on the representative characteristics recognition technology, which involved in the rapid screening for EBN quality, qualitative detection of adulterants components and discrimination of geographic origin and peoduction mode for EBNs. The developed detection system can meet the requirements of various institutions for different purposes. The study in this thesis could provide technical support and therotical guidance for positively monitoring EBN products, supervising EBN market and regulating EBN industry, and also could provide ideas for the establishement of EBN supervision traceability management system conducted by our country.