Research Publications (Food Safety)

Lantibiotics are antimicrobial peptides with potential applications as the next generation of antimicrobials in the food industry and/or the pharmaceutical industry. Nisin has successfully been used as a food preservative for over 40 years, but its major drawback is its limited stability under neutral and alkaline pH conditions. To identify alternatives with better biochemical properties, we screened more than 100 strains of the Bacillus cereus group.

Aims
The main objective of this study was to investigate the antifungal effect of Solanum torvum leaves against different field and storage fungi, and to identify its active compound. Also, to evaluate in vitro and in vivo inhibitory efficacy on toxigenic strains of Aspergillus flavus and Fusarium verticillioides.

Publication date: Available online 21 September 2015

Author(s): Ruihua Zhang, Guomei Zhou, Yinghao Xin, Junhao Chen, Shaoli Lin, Ye Tian, Zhijing Xie, Shijin Jiang

A simple analytical method was developed for the simultaneous analysis of 18 perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in edible oil. The target compounds were extracted by acetonitrile, purified by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and dispersive solid-phase extraction (DSPE) using graphitized carbon black (GCB) and octadecyl (C18), and analyzed by liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ES-MS/MS) in negative ion mode.

Dana Ziuzina, Daniela Boehm, Sonal Patil, P. J. Cullen, Paula Bourke

The sialyl-T antigen, sialylα2-3Galβ1-3GalNAc-, is a common O-glycan structure in human glycoproteins and is synthesized by sialyltransferase ST3Gal1. The enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli serotype O104 has the rare ability to synthesize a sialyl-T antigen mimic. We showed here that the wbwA gene of the E. coli O104 antigen synthesis gene cluster encodes an α2,3-sialyltransferase WbwA that transfers sialic acid from CMP-sialic acid to Galβ1-3GalNAcα-diphosphate-lipid acceptor.

A randomized clinical trial of hepatitis A vaccines (1 or 2 doses of inactivated vaccine [Healive] or 1 dose of live attenuated vaccine [Biovac]) was conducted among adults to evaluate seroprotection rates and geometric mean concentrations of antibody against hepatitis A virus for 36 months.

Publication date: 4 January 2016
, Volume 216
Author(s): Carolyn A. Meaney, Stephen T. Cartman, Peter J. McClure, Nigel P. Minton

Publication date: 4 January 2016
, Volume 216
Author(s): Gabriela Garmendia, Silvana Vero

Ying-Ying Zhang, Gang Li, Hui Che, Hai-Ying Sun, Guo-Sheng Xiao, Yan Wang, Gui-Rong Li

Publication date: February 2016
, Volume 53, Part B
Author(s): Florence Baron, Françoise Nau, Catherine Guérin-Dubiard, Sylvie Bonnassie, Michel Gautier, Simon C. Andrews, Sophie Jan

Venkatramana D. Krishna, Erin Roach, Nathan A. Zaidman, Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari, Jessica H. Rotschafer, Scott M. O’Grady, Maxim C-J. Cheeran

Coffee is a highly consumed and popular beverage all over the world; however, coffee beans used for daily consumption may contain pesticide residues that may cause adverse health effects to consumers. In this monitoring study, the effect of household coffee processing on pesticide residues in coffee beans was investigated.

Publication date: Available online 16 September 2015

Author(s): Gabriel Cabrera, Romina J. Fernández-Brando, María Pilar Mejías, María Victoria Ramos, María Jimena Abrey-Recalde, Silvia Vanzulli, Mónica Vermeulen, Marina S. Palermo

The objective of this study was to compare the acid resistanceAR) of non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) strains belonging to serogroups O26, O45, O103, O104, O111, O121, and O145 with O157:H7 STEC isolated from various sources in 400 mM acetic acid solutions (AAS) at pH 3.2 and 30 °C for 25 min with or without glutamic acid.

Mature-green cherry tomato fruitsLycopersicon esculentum cv. Jinyu) were exposed to different power densities of ultrasound (66.64, 106.19, and 145.74 W/L) at 25 °C to study ultrasound non-thermal effects on the storage properties.

Mohd Rehan, Ejaz Ahmad, Ishfaq A. Sheikh, Adel M. Abuzenadah, Ghazi A. Damanhouri, Osama S. Bajouh, Samera F. AlBasri, Mansour M. Assiri, Mohd A. Beg

Publication date: 4 January 2016
, Volume 216
Author(s): Angela Guidone, Teresa Zotta, Attilio Matera, Annamaria Ricciardi, Francesca De Filippis, Danilo Ercolini, Eugenio Parente

Publication date: 1 April 2016
, Volume 196
Author(s): Aurea Juliana Bombo Trevisan, Daniele de Almeida Lima, Geni Rodrigues Sampaio, Rosana Aparecida Manólio Soares, Deborah Helena Markowicz Bastos

A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the TaqMan probe-binding site resulted in decreased sensitivity of real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-rtPCR) for detection of norovirus genogroup II genotype 4 (GII.4) Sydney. A new degenerate probe was designed that improved the sensitivity of the detection while not interfering with the detection of other GII and GI strains.

Quasispecies of hepatitis B virus (HBV) with variations in the major hydrophilic region (MHR) of the HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) can evolve during infection, allowing HBV to evade neutralizing antibodies. These escape variants may contribute to chronic infections. In this study, we looked for MHR variants in HBV quasispecies using ultradeep sequencing and evaluated the relationship between these variants and clinical manifestations in infected patients.

Three multiplex PCR assays were developed to identify the 11 most common Listeria monocytogenes clones in clinical and food samples; 270 (95.7%) of 282 strains of serogroups IVb, IIb, IIa, and IIc were identified accurately. This novel tool is a rapid and efficient alternative to multilocus sequence typing for identification of L. monocytogenes clones.

Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis is a significant cause of gastrointestinal illness in the United States; however, current molecular subtyping methods lack resolution for this highly clonal serovar. Advances in next-generation sequencing technologies have made it possible to examine whole-genome sequencing (WGS) as a potential molecular subtyping tool for outbreak detection and source trace back. Here, we conducted a retrospective analysis of S.