Saffron (Crocus sativus) is the most valuable food additive in the world especially for its desirable scent, color and taste. Little production and high price of saffron caused some adulterations such as safflower, corn stigmas, pomegranate, meet fibers and etc. in trade of saffron. There are several methods for detecting these fraudulent based on morphological and chemical tests but they are not effective in some cases. In this research a novel molecular method based on ITS-2 marker is introduced. A common forward primer based on 5.8s rDNA for all plant frauds such as safflower, corn stigmas, pomegranate, turmeric and capsicum slices was designed then specific reverse primers based on ITS-2 for any frauds have been designed for polymerase chain reaction. Related ITS-2 bands were amplified in any adulterations in saffron. Specific primer for camel and cow meet fibers was designed based on cytochrome b gene and could amplified the related bands. Multiplex PCR with all of these primers could amplify all of the bands related to any adulterations. So this marker can be used efficiently for detection of these frauds in commercial saffron.

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