文摘
Whole fish morphologically identified as belonging to Theragra chalcogramma, Merluccius merluccius,Merluccius hubbsi, and Merluccius capensis and 19 fish products commercialized as surimi withdifferent commercial brands and labeled as T. chalcogramma were analyzed by direct sequenceanalysis of the cytochrome b gene. A phylogenetic analysis of surimi products was performed aswell. Results demonstrated that mislabeling is a large-scale phenomenon, since 84.2% of surimi-based fish products sold as T. chalcogramma (16/19) were prepared with species different from theone declared. In fact, only three samples (samples 15-17) were found to belong to T. chalcogramma.In the remaining samples, Merluccidae (samples 4-14), Gadidae (samples 18 and 19), Sparidae(sample 1), and Pomacentridae (samples 2 and 3) families were detected. A phylogenetic tree wasconstructed, and the bootstrap value was calculated. According to this methodology, 11 sampleswere grouped in the same clade as Merluccius spp.