Geographical Origin Identification of Lamb Meat from Local Breeds in Southern Xinjiang Based on Characteristic Mineral Elements

For geographical traceability and breed discrimination of lamb meat in Southern Xinjiang, inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry was used to analyze the differences in the contents of 25 mineral elements in lamb meat from four local breeds in this region. Characteristic elements were determined by analysis of variance, orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA), hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). The results showed that there were significant differences in the contents of 16 mineral elements including Na, Mg, K, Ca, P, Fe, Zn, Rb, V, Cu, Cr, Se, Sr, Cd, Ag, Cs among lamb meat from different breeds. Furthermore, Se, Mg, P, Sr, and Ag were selected as the characteristic mineral elements for traceability and discrimination. Se, Mg, Sr, and Ag were determined as the characteristic mineral elements in Hetian lamb, P in Celle black lamb, Mg and Sr in Duolang lamb, and Sr in Hetian white lamb. Based on these characteristic elements, a discriminant model was established, and the overall accuracy rate was 100% in both cross-validation and back-validation tests, demonstrating that the five selected mineral elements are effective for distinguishing the lamb meat from four local breeds in Southern Xinjiang, confirming the validity of this model. Therefore, the analytical method based on mineral element differences allows traceability and identification of lamb meat from four local breeds in Southern Xinjiang, which is of great significance for the protection of local specialty sheep breeds in Xinjiang.