Project Profile

The Research project was born with the objective of increasing the competitiveness of typical Sicilian dairy products and baked goods, through the implementation of innovative processes aimed at the microbiological and molecular characterisation of these.

In relation to the dairy chain, we have started by noticing that typical Sicilian products often have difficulty being imposed on national and international markets. These are located in a food agricultural system characterised by the growing diffusion of products subject to counterfeiting and by the consequent increase in the nutrition-related anxiety of consumers. In this context, the identification of precise innovative technological tools useful for characterising the finished product becomes of fundamental importance to authenticate the dairy product on a microbiological and molecular basis. Regarding on the other hand the chain of baked goods, the project poses the aim of isolating and characterising the useful microorganisms (milk and yeast bacteria) of some typical Sicilian baked products (such as the bread loaf of Piana degli Albenesi).

In relation to the dairy chain, the project activities have been aimed at implementing a system of tracking and authentication of the products from different Sicilian ovine and bovine breeds. This objective was reached through the use of new testing and innovative approaches based mainly on the analysis of the genome to identify specific breed DNA markers.

In particular through precise bioinformation analysis from information from a commercial microarray produced by illumination, 40 informative genome sites were selected, i.e. DNA regions, useful to identify specific molecular markers of each breed. In this way, through DNA analysis of the animals, it was possible to trace back each individual to its breed unambiguously.

The key points of the authentication system of dairy products:

• Extraction of DNA from animals belonging to a representative sample of the main Sicilian bovine and ovine breeds.
• Analysis of the ovine and bovine genome in order to identify the specific molecular markers of each breed
• Advantage: possibility of tracing each animal back to its breed
• Extraction of DNA from dairy products defined, by the relevant Production Guidelines, as monobreed (i.e. products with milk from only one breed)
• Analysis of DNA extracted from cheese and comparison with that extracted from biological material of the animal.

Possibilities:

1) the two DNAs are identical: the product is authentic
2) the due DNAs are not identical: the product is counterfeit.