Ten published DNA-based analytical methods aiming at detecting material of almond (Prunus dulcis) were in silico evaluated for potential cross-reactivity with other stone fruits (Prunus spp.), including peach, apricot, plum, cherry, sour cherry and Sargent cherry. For most assays, the analysis of nucleotide databases suggested none or insufficient discrimination of at least some stone fruits. On the other hand, the assay targeting non-specific lipid transfer protein (Röder et al., 2011, Anal Chim Acta 685:74-83) was sufficiently discriminative, judging from nucleotide alignments. Empirical evaluation was performed for three of the published methods, one modification of a commercial kit (SureFood allergen almond) and one attempted novel method targeting thaumatin-like protein gene. Samples of leaves and kernels were used in the experiments. The empirical results were favourable for the method from Röder et al. (2011) and a modification of SureFood allergen almond kit, both showing cross-reactivity <10(-3) compared to the model almond.

Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology Food Research Institute Priemyselná 4 P O Box 25 824 75 Bratislava 26 Slovakia

Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology Food Research Institute Priemyselná 4 P O Box 25 824 75 Bratislava 26 Slovakia; Institute of Food Chemistry and Biotechnolgy Faculty of Chemistry Brno University of Technology Purkyňova 118 612 00 Brno Czech Republic

Institute of Molecular Physiology and Genetics Slovak Academy of Sciences Vlárska 5 83334 Bratislava Slovakia

REQUIMTE Departamento de Ciências Químicas Faculdade de Farmácia Universidade do Porto Rua de Jorge Viterbo Ferreira 228 4050 313 Porto Portugal

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