Standards Development

Scope

This proposed technical method specifies a real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR) method for the qualitative detection of pigeon-specific DNA derived from food and feed. It requires the extraction of an adequate amount of PCR amplifiable DNA from the relevant matrix and can be applied to the detection of pigeon material derived from pigeon (Columba livia).

Purpose

The pigeon is an important animal species for the use of the raw material of the foodstuffs. The pigeon meat and eggs are important animal-derived food sources for human beings. There is a constantly increasing number of pigeon meat and eggs consumption in recent years in the world.

Fraudulent adulteration of meat in food and feed threatens both public safety and commerce. The pigeon meat and eggs can be adulterated with other poultry meats and eggs, especially with chicken, duck, goose meats and eggs in processed foods. Most pigeon breeds descend from the Europe rock pigeon (Columba livia). This proposed technical specification describes a method to detect the pigeonspecific DNA single-copy sequence by targeting the specific conserved region in Columba livia breed Danish Tumbler unplaced genomic scaffold, Cliv_1.0 scaffold114 by real-time PCR. The method was validated by 12 global laboratories according to ISO 20813: 2019.

ISO/TS 20224-1~7: 2020 for the method of detection of bovine, ovine, porcine, chicken, goat, horse and donkey were published in July, 2020and ISO/TS 20224-8~9: 2022 for turkey and goose were published in Oct., 2022. The aim of the document is to add the pigeon DNA detection method to ISO/TS 20224 as a new independent part.