A duplex polymerase chain reaction assay for the identification of goat cashmere and sheep wool

In this article attempts were made to establish one-step duplex PCR assay for the identification of goat cashmere and sheep wool. Primers were selected from published papers or designed in the well-conserved region of mitochondrial D-loop genes after alignment of the available sequences in the GenBank database. A fragment of 294 bp from cashmere goat was amplified and three PCR fragments including a bright main band of approximately 404 bp in length were obtained from sheep. The duplex PCR was found to be effective in detecting mixed samples precisely when sheep wool was mixed to goat cashmere with the relative proportion of over 9.09%. The duplex PCR could be considered as a simple and promising method in identification of goat cashmere and sheep wool.