| Abstract
| - An accurate screening method for hake species identification based in single-stranded conformationpolymorphism analysis is presented. The differentiation of 11 species of the Merluccius genus andanother five species of the Gadiformes order was studied. For this purpose, two fragments of thecytochrome b gene were sequenced; the first is the 5‘-end, a fragment of 465 bp (Kocher fragment),and the second is the 3‘-end of the cytochrome b, a 588 bp fragment (SB fragment). These twofragments were amplified, denatured, and submitted to native nondenaturing polyacrylamide gelelectrophoresis. Results show that with this technique and both fragments, all of the species studiedcan be unequivocally identified. The validation of the methodology was carried out with 24 commercialhake products showing good performance of the technique for species identification in commercialproducts. Results show that all species were identified. This technique has advantages over otherpublished methods, because only one polymerase chain reaction step is needed, saving time andmoney, and it decreases the time needed for hake species identification in food products, making itespecially suitable as a screening methodology when a high number of samples should be analyzedin routine examinations. Keywords: Species identification; traceability; hake; Merluccius; cytochrome b; sequencing, SSCP
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