In this study we reported the development and evaluation of a quantitative competitive polymerase chain reaction (QC-PCR) for detection and quantification of poultry DNA in fish meal. A universal PCR primer pair (Pou) was used to amplify a specific region 12s rRNA from poultry DNA. Specificity of the primers was evaluated with DNA from cattle and sheep. An external control DNA was constructed by 83 bp differing in length from the poultry target sequence and used for PCR reaction together with the target DNA. DNA was extracted from thirty commercial samples of fish meal and spiked with external control DNA and was co-amplified with Pou primer pair. The signal intensity was quantified by ImageJ 1.29x and were used to compare variety of poultry pollution percentage in fish meal samples. The results of QC_PCR showed that pollution percentage was in the range of 0.1 to 3% in collected samples. This study was the first report of QC_PCR application for quantifying of poultry pollution in fish meal in Iran.

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