Assessment of marine fish mislabeling in South Korea's markets by DNA barcoding

Seafood is critically important to the human's diet worldwide because of its common and rich nutrients. However, seafood mislabeling may cause harms to consumers in terms of economic loss and health. DNA barcoding has gained its popularity in seafood authentication. Although South Korea is one of the biggest seafood markets in the world, there is still no large scale study using DNA barcoding to detect seafood mislabeling in the country. In this study, partial COI gene was used to investigate seafood mislabeling in South Korea. COI fragments of 157 food samples and 88 reference samples we collected and analyzed. Of 157 food samples, we found 12 mislabeling cases, including four species of name mislabeling and two species of origin mislabeling. Overall, mislabeling rate detected in this study is 7.6%. Our results provide fundamental for food safety management as well as future study on seafood authentication.