Cataloguing the small RNA content of honey using next generation sequencing

Christopher Smith; Nural Cokcetin; Thuyen Truong; Elizabeth Harry; Gyorgy Hutvagner; Sarah Bajan

doi:10.1016/j.fochms.2021.100014

Cataloguing the small RNA content of honey using next generation sequencing

Food Chem (Oxf). 2021 Feb 17:2:100014. doi: 10.1016/j.fochms.2021.100014. eCollection 2021 Jul 30.

Authors

Christopher Smith¹, Nural Cokcetin², Thuyen Truong³, Elizabeth Harry⁴, Gyorgy Hutvagner¹, Sarah Bajan^{5

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
² Research Fellow, The ithree Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia.
³ Casual Academic, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney, News South Wales, Australia.
⁴ Professor of Biology, The ithree Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia.
⁵ Honorary Research Fellow, The ithree Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia.
⁶ School of Health and Behavioural Science, University of Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Queensland, Australia.
⁷ Sunshine Coast Health Institute, Birtinya, Queensland, Australia.

Abstract

Honey adulteration is a problem that effects the global honey industry and specifically, has been discovered in the Australian market. Common methods of adulteration include dilution with sugar syrup substitutes and the mislabelling of the floral and geographic origin(s) of honey. Current authentication tools rely on the molecular variability between different honeys, identifying unique chemical profiles and/or DNA signatures characteristic of a particular honey. Honey is known to contain plant miRNAs derived from its floral source. To explore the composition and variability of honey RNA molecules, this is the first study to catalogue the small RNA content of Australian polyfloral table honey and New Zealand Leptospermum scoparium honey using next generation sequencing. The data shows that in addition to miRNAs, honey contains a variety of small non-coding RNAs including tRNA-derived fragments. Moreover, the honey small RNAs are derived from a range of phylogenetic sources, including from plant, invertebrate, and prokaryotic species. The data indicates that different honeys contain unique small RNA profiles, which suggests a novel avenue in developing molecular-based honey authentication tools.

Keywords: Food authentication; Honey; Leptospermum scoparium; Molecular markers; Next generation sequencing; small RNAs.