Food
Regulatory Fish Encyclopedia (RFE)
Browse the index to images and data in the Regulatory Fish Encyclopedia by:
| Market Name | Common Name | Scientific Name |
| Family Name | Nomenclature, Taxonomy and General Information† | IEF Peak Reports† |
| FDA Seafood List |
RFE Overview RFE Tutorial |
Disclaimer |
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The Seafood List is a searchable compendium of approximately 1700 species of finfish and shellfish. It includes Approved FDA Market Names, Common Names, Scientific Names, Vernacular (local) Names and links back to the RFE for those species included. Additionally this document provides guidance to industry in the selection of approvable names for marketing seafood in the U.S. NOTE: Some E-mail addresses printed in the descriptor tags on the RFE images are now obsolete. To contact RFE Team members and contributors, please use the addresses on the RFE Contacts Page. The RFE Isoelectric Focusing (IEF) Peak Report Browse Page (including Position Normalized Gel Lane Pattern Schematics)† is an Index of Isoelectric Focusing Gel* Lane Banding Pattern Peak Reports in the Regulatory Fish Encyclopedia resulting from Densitometry, Integration, and Migration Position Normalization (Position Calibration against pI Marker Standards) from use of the Standard RFE IEF Gel Format. These reports contain data for large plate IEF analyses for 57 specimens from 39 species (of the 94 species currently in the RFE). These data are linked from the above Browse Page and from the Page 5 sections of the species pages. † This content is temporarily unavailable online. * Isoelectric Focusing Methodology is based on the AOAC Official Methods of Analysis (1995), AOAC Official Method 980.16: "Identification of Fish Species - Thin Layer Polyacrylamide Gel Isoelectric Focusing Method". |
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Overview of the RFE
The Regulatory Fish Encyclopedia (RFE) is a compilation of data in several formats that assists with the accurate identification of fish species. It was developed by FDA's RFE Team of scientists at the Seafood Products Research Center (SPRC, Seattle District), and the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) to help federal, state, and local officials and purchasers of seafood identify species substitution and economic deception in the marketplace.
The RFE includes for each of a number of commercially relevant fish species for sale in the U.S. market high-resolution photographs as their scanned digital images (jpeg format) of whole fish and their marketed product forms (including fillets, steaks, or whole crustaceans) which may be used for visual comparison to a whole fish in question (or its marketed product form). The RFE also includes illustrated unique taxonomic characteristics† (physical properties such as size, shape, color, etc.) for selected species to aid in identification. In addition there is chemical taxonomic information consisting of species-characteristic biochemical patterns which may be compared quantitatively to patterns obtained by an appropriate laboratory analysis of the fish species specimen in question. Currently the RFE includes tissue protein patterns determined by Isoelectric Focusing (IEF) electrophoresis† and CO1 Mitochondrial DNA sequence patterns determined by DNA "Barcoding"†.
"Anatomy of a Gel" and a more detailed description of the RFE are available.
This DISCLAIMER pertains to the use of the RFE and to use of the images and data therein.
† This content is temporarily unavailable online.