Rapid, portable species identification to combat the illegal wildlife trade

The illegal trade of endangered animal and plant species, or products derived from them, is estimated to be worth billions each year. Consumable products are often shipped cooked with alternative species names listed on packaging making identification of illegal species hard to identify. While lab-based DNA sequencing is deployed, the greatest demand for sequencing capability is in the ‘field’ at ports and markets where customs officials encounter and can seize suspected illegal goods.

Research by Orie Shaw, University of Leicester, UK, shows how Nanopore sequencing devices delivers the sequencing capability for an on-the-spot test to those on the frontline. Creating a library of short (~200 bp), 'mini-barcodes’ from European eel (Anguilla Anguilla) samples as a reference allowed for the accurate identification of samples even when DNA had been degraded through cooking processes, within 90 minutes. The portable solution centred upon a MinION demonstrates the versality of nanopore sequencing and its capability to further forensic investigations in the lab and on the field.