ArticleNPJ science of food2025
Tracing the botanical origins of UK heather honey by relative quantification of plant DNA.
Article in NPJ science of food, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Honey Fraud as a Moving Analytical Target: Omics-Informed Authentication Within a Multi-Layer Analytical Framework.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Heather honey is an important honey type produced in the UK, valued for its unique flavour, thixotropic texture and health-promoting properties. Botanical authentication can be challenging due to the natural variability in honey composition and typical pollen analysis relies heavily on expert knowledge. As an alternative, real-time PCR (qPCR) can be a rapid and robust method to identify floral species in honey. In this work, species-specific markers for Calluna vulgaris and Erica cinerea were developed and used to quantify 266 honey samples relative to the plant trnL P6 loop. The method classed 96% of 234 heather honeys as containing > 3% heather DNA, with 68% classified as dominant (> 45%) for ling heather origin. Moreover, high specificity was achieved with negligible amplification in the 32 non-heather honeys. Our qPCR method offered comparable results to melissopalynology, DNA metabarcoding, and digital PCR, showing potential as an alternative and accessible method for botanical authentication of heather honeys.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.