Review on recent DNA-based methods for main food authentication topics.

Adulteration and mislabeling of food products, and the commercial fraud derived, either intentionally or not, is a global source of economic fraud to consumers, but also for all stakeholders involved in food production and distribution. Legislation has been enforced all over the world aimed at guaranteeing the authenticity of the food products all along the distribution chain, therefore avoiding food fraud and adulteration. Accordingly, there is a growing need for new analytical methods able to verify that all the ingredients included in a foodstuff match the qualities claimed by the manufacturer or distributor. In this sense, the improved performance of most recent DNA-based tools in term of sensitivity, multiplexing ability, high-throughput and relatively low cost, give them a game changer role in food authenticity-related topics. Here, we provide a thorough and updated vision on the recently reported approaches that are applying these DNA-based tools to assess the authenticity of food components and products.