Research Publications (Food Safety)

In times of climate change, practicing sustainable, climate-resilient, and productive agriculture is of primordial importance. Compost from different resources, now treated as wastes, could be one form of sustainable fertilizer creating a resilience of agriculture to the adverse effects of climate change. However, the safety of the produced compost regarding human pathogens, pharmaceuticals, and related resistance genes must be considered.

Salmonella, as a common foodborne pathogen in dairy products, poses a great threat to human health. We studied a new detection method based on quantum dots (QD).

This study was performed to identify potential probiotic endophytes from Ageratina adenophora and evaluate their ameliorating effects on gut injury and integrity damage associated with microbiota dysbiosis in mice fed high fat diet. Using morphological and biochemical tests, and 16S rRNA gene sequencing technique, two bacteria endophytes were identified as strains of Bacillus toyonensis and were named Bacillus toyonensis SAU-19 (GenBank No.

Hypothesis generation about potential food and other exposures is a critical step in an enteric disease outbreak investigation, helping to focus investigation efforts and use of limited resources. Historical outbreak data are an important source of information for hypothesis generation, providing data on common food– and animal–pathogen pairs and other epidemiological trends.

This study aimed to determine the effect of enrofloxacin (ENR) on the transfer of the plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance (PMQR) gene qnrS from opportunistic pathogen Escherichia coli (E2) to Salmonella Enteritidis (SE211) and to analyze the resistance characteristics of SE211-qnrS isolates. The plasmid carrying qnrS gene of E2 was sequenced by Oxford Nanopore technology. The plasmid carrying qnrS gene belonged to incompatibility group IncY.

Enteric diseases caused by Salmonella are prevalent in poultry farming. With the forbiddance of antibiotics in feedstuff industry, Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis) preparation as antibiotic alternatives against Salmonella infection has gained increasing attention recently. However, the protection modes of B. subtilis against Salmonella infection in broilers are strain-specific. In this study, probiotic B.

With the increase in antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella, phages have been paid more attention to as an alternative to antibiotics. In this study, a phage designated as SP76 was isolated from sewage. It can lyse several serotypes of Salmonella, including S. typhimurium (21/33), S. enteritidis (7/7), S. dublin (4/4), S. pullorum (2/2) and S. choleraesuis (1/2).

In the European Union (EU), Salmonella was the causative agent responsible for almost one in three (30.7%) of all foodborne outbreaks reported by member states during 2018, causing 11,581 cases of illness, which represented an increase of 20.6% compared to 2017.

Journal of Food Processing and Preservation, Accepted Article. Based on the determination of the chemical composition of essential oils by GC-MS, the antibacterial activities and mechanism of combined essential oils extracted from Origanum vulgare L. and Houttuynia cordata T. (denoted as C-EO hereafter) were investigated. The possibility of using C-EO as a potential substitute for synthetic antiseptics was studied for the first time.

We recently showed that functional amino acid (FAA) supplementation improves growth performance and immune status of Salmonella Typhimurium (ST)-challenged pigs, which was further improved by a longer adaptation period. It is expected that the effects are associated with increased activity of intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP).

A Salmonella Enteritidis clinical strain SAL045 isolated from an infant patient in China was subjected to whole genome sequencing. Strain SAL045 is resistant to 12 antibiotics tested including ampicillin and polymyxin E. A novel hybrid plasmid pS045A harboring 22 antibiotic resistance genes and 10 virulence genes was characterized. There were no sequences in the NCBI nucleotide database that completely covered the pS045A sequence.

Salmonella is one of the main pathogenic factors that cause foodborne diseases. Rapid and accurate detection of Salmonella in food is of great importance to ensure food safety. Nicking enzyme-assisted amplification (NEAA) is one of the promising isothermal amplification methods finishing the in vitro amplification in ∼10 min; however, it suffers from nonspecific amplification a lot (∼70% products are noises).

Food processing environment flooring can become contaminated with pathogens in many ways including foot and equipment traffic, incoming materials, and floor drain backups.  Natural antimicrobial turmeric and commercially available powdered floor treatments may reduce the levels of pathogens on flooring thereby reducing the risk of cross contamination from the floor to food contact surfaces.

Peripheral lymph nodes have been implicated as potential contaminants of ground beef, yet the source and timing of Salmonella lymph node (LN) infection in cattle is still unclear, limiting targeted intervention. Thus, the aim of this study was to leverage the vertical integration of special-fed veal production to identify preharvest environmental exposures, namely livestock trailers or harvest facility holding pens where calves spend 30 min. to 4 hrs, that result in Salmonella LN infection.

Salmonella can be isolated from animal food, ingredients, and animal food manufacturing surfaces. There is limited data regarding the sanitation of animal food manufacturing surfaces. The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of nine chemical treatments to reduce Salmonella Typhimurium contamination on various manufacturing surfaces. This experiment was a 9 × 5 factorial with nine chemical treatments and five surfaces.

Letters in Applied Microbiology, Accepted Article. The genetic fusion of cytolysin A (ClyA) to heterologous antigen expressed in live Salmonella vector demonstrated efficient translocation into periplasmic space and extracellular medium. Accumulating evidence has shown that clyA-mediated antigen delivery improved growth fitness and enhanced immunogenicity of live vector vaccine, but the factors influencing this protein exportation has not been investigated.

The management of enteric fever through antibiotics is difficult these days due to the emerging resistance of Salmonella to various antimicrobial agents. The development of antimicrobial resistance is associated with multiple factors including mutations in the specific genes.

The Type VI Secretion System (T6SS) is a multiprotein device that has emerged as an important fitness and virulence factor for many Gram-negative bacteria through the injection of effector proteins into prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells via a contractile mechanism. While some effector proteins specifically target bacterial or eukaryotic cells, others can target both types of cells (trans-kingdom effectors).

This present study aims to determine the lowest concentration effects of the assayed different antibiotics; antimicrobial agents alone and their combinations with nisin were investigated to prevent the biofilm formation and break down the biofilm structure of Salmonella.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global concern, and new approaches are needed to circumvent animal and food-borne resistant pathogens. Among the new strategies, the combination of antibiotics with natural compounds such as essential oils (EOs) could be an alternative to challenge bacterial resistance. The present study evaluates the phenotypic and genotypic antibiotic resistance of 36 Salmonella enterica (16 S. Typhimurium, 3 monophasic variant S. Typhimurium, 8 S. Enteritidis, 6 S.

Journal of Applied Microbiology, Accepted Article. Aim This study aimed to investigate the isolation rate, antibiotic resistance, and virulence genes of Salmonella enterica serovar from two commercial farms in Nigeria. Methods and Results Salmonella isolation was performed according to the United States Food and Drug Agency (USFDA) method.

Cross-contamination is an important event for bacterial transfer throughout the pork production chain. In Brazil, Salmonella sp. is the most relevant hazard in the pork industry, and further knowledge concerning its contamination is essential for in-depth risk assessments. Thus, we aimed to assess the transfer probability of Salmonella sp.

Type 1 secretion systems play important roles in pathogenicity of Gram-negative bacteria. However, the substrate secretion mechanism remains largely unknown. In this research, we observed the sequence features of repeats-in-toxin (RTX) proteins, a major class of type 1 secreted effectors (T1SEs). We found striking non-RTX-motif amino acid composition patterns at the C termini, most typically exemplified by the enriched “[FLI][VAI]” at the most C-terminal two positions.

Recently, frequent outbreaks of foodborne diseases have attracted increasing attention, and how to rapidly detect foodborne pathogens has also become an urgent issue. Herein, we reported the colorimetric sensor based on chitosan-coated magnetic nanoparticles (CS@MNPs) for rapidly broad-spectrum detection of the total bacterial count, whose color change can be visible to the naked eye without any other sophisticated instruments.

Viable foodborne pathogens can cause intestinal infection and food poisoning. Herein, we reported an RNA assay allowing for sensitive (close to 1 CFU and 1% viable bacteria detectable) and rapid (within 2.5 h) detection of viable pathogenic bacteria by coupling isothermal RNA amplification (nucleic acid sequence-based amplification, NASBA) with a CRISPR/Cas13a system. NASBA allowed direct amplification of 16S rRNA extracted from viable S.