Question

ABSTRACT: The objective of this study was to test a variety of bush meat products sold by meat retailer. Police investigate the incident and seized the knife. There was a small piece of tissue adhering to the knife for further investigation. DNA was extracted from the meat sample and PCR done using Forward: L14841 (5'-AAAAAGCTTCCATCCAACATCTCAGCATGATGAAA-3') and Reverse: H15149 (5'-AAACTGCAGCCCCTCAGAATGATATTTGTCCTCA-3') primer. after that dna sequencing performed for identification of species. The resulted sequence aligned against Nucleotide blast and create phylogenetic tree to identify nearest species of suspect. We identify our suspect species matches with Ceratotherium simum. The White rhinoceros , which is illegal to sell on the commercial market, was detected.

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Answer 1

Thanks for asking the question.

This is really an interesting question. I will try answering it being as clear as possible.

Firstly, The rhinoceros (rhino) is an iconic mega-herbivore from the family Rhinocerotidae. The brutal poaching crisis which led to the killing of thousands of rhinos over the last few years has drawn special attention to the plight of this threatened species. With the increasing number of rhinos requiring urgent medical help, the need to optimize the treatment of severely injured poaching victims is substantial. Unfortunately, with the need for appropriate drugs being a relatively recent problem, scientifically evaluated data for the treatment of rhino is lacking.  Enforcement action for alleged rhino horn trafficking crime requires robust species identification testing.

Material suspected of originating from species of Rhinoceros is frequently seized by forensic organizations investigating the trade in endangered species. At present identification of the species is possible by DNA sequencing of the material, such as powdered rhinoceros horns. The unambiguous identification of rhino products using a 402 bp fragment of cytochrome b gene was investigated. This DNA sequence may not only assist in the identification of the unknown sample but can be used to determine the phylogenetic relationships of rhinoceros species. Sequences of suspect rhinoceros horns hornswere compared with the sequences registered in GenBank. The maximum value of genetic distance among white rhinoceros was 0.0176, and 0.0333 among black rhinoceros. In the comparison among rhinoceros species, the greatest genetic distance was between black and Indian rhinoceros (0.1564)

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) protocol, was appropriate to use for species identification of rhino horns.

A DNA-based species identification test.to amplify a shorter, yet still phylogenetically informative cyt-b region for all five rhino species and water buffalo (a common substitute) in a one-step PCR. Targeting a shorter cyt-b region improves the success of amplifying DNA from low-template samples (i.e. from horn and/or horn derivatives).

Finally, the species identification test was applied applies to demonstrate its effectiveness in real-life seizures. We have provided a complete and validated tool kit to assist any laboratories that carry out species identification for rhino horn products and derivatives.

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