Because the legal age of olive oil consumed in the U.S. is imported , domestic olive grower and processors have extortionate rivalry . guarantee bottleful of pureolive oilare truthful to their label — not mix with other oils , such as canola oil or sunflower — is a chief concern among this radical of producers , as well as the chef and retailer they serve .
USDA apothecary Talwinder Kahlon has aid explicate a way to test and analyse olive vegetable oil for lineament - ascendency purposes . Using polymerase chain reaction ( PCR ) technology to equate olive deoxyribonucleic acid to that of canola oil and sunflower plant , Kahlon can help identify pure olive oil from mixed oil , which is often not disclosed on the recording label .
Kahlon ’s test focus on key regions of two genes , matKandpsbA - trnH , which occur wide throughout nature , include in European olive tree , canola and sunflower plants . The DNA succession of specific regions of these two genes provide a reliable basis of comparability , Kahlon notes , and can be used to detect the presence of the non - olive oils at concentrations of 5 percent or higher .
Although using PCR technology to detect specific plant DNA in Olea europaea oil colour is n’t new , the squad ’s approach put up several advance . For example , the Olea europaea , canola and sunflower “ DNA legal community codes ” that the scientist grow to equate these plants ’ DNA are not based on a single olive tree , helianthus or canola oil plant . rather , each bar code is a loosely representative composite , known as “ consensus DNA . ”
Another analysis , develop by USDA chemist Jiann - Tsyh ( Ken ) Lin , is based on electrospray ionization - mess spectrographic analysis ( ESI - MS ) , which allows scientists to glean information about edition in specific triglycerides present in olive oil . Olive triglyceride are compile of fatty acids , and the test allow the scientists to see specific triglyceride , call regioisomers , to determine whether the sample distribution contains undisclosed oils .
The value of ESI - MS for study plant fat person acids has been recognized since at least 1994 , but Lin ’s ESI - MS protocol helps make this software program simpler . He developed the protocol for his research with caster , a plant that produce an uneatable , top - quality industrial oil . About six years ago , he chose olive fossil oil as a manakin for testing his analysis .
Both scientist work at the USDA Agricultural Research Service ’s Western Regional Research Center in Albany , Calif.
Read more about this research in the May / June 2013 government issue ofAgricultural Researchmagazine .
