A PCR assay for sex determination of yak ( Bos grunniens) meat by amplification of the male-specific SRY gene

Yak meat is of great economic importance to the people living in the cold high altitude area. In the present work, a multiplex PCR-based method was proposed for the sexing of yak meat by amplifying the target sequence of male-specific SRY gene. In a single reaction set, two DNA fragments of 121- and 290-bp were amplified from male meat DNA using two pairs of primers, but only one DNA fragment of 290-bp was amplified from female meat DNA. The assay proposed herein was applied to raw and heat-treated yak meat samples, and the identification results obtained were in perfect agreement with the anatomical sex of the yak meat samples. The method is fast, reliable and cheap. It is potentially suitable for the sexing of yak meat in routine analyses. It can be considered a helpful tool in the quality control of yak meat and meat products.