Research Publications (Food Safety)

Recovery from enteric bacterial illness often includes a phase of organismal shedding over a period of days to months. The monitoring of this process through laboratory testing forms the foundation of public health action to prevent further transmission. Regulations in most jurisdictions in the United States exclude individuals who continue to shed certain organisms from sensitive occupations and situations, such as food handling, providing direct patient care, or attending day care.

Two nonamidated host defense peptides named Pin2[G] and FA1 were evaluated against three types of pathogenic bacteria: two (Staphylococcus aureus UPD13 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa UPD3) isolated from diabetic foot ulcer patients, and another (Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium [ATCC 14028]) from a commercial collection. In vitro experiments showed that the antimicrobial performance of the synthetic peptides Pin2[G] and FA1 was modest, although FA1 was more effective than Pin2[G].

A total of 2,283 Salmonella isolates were recovered from 18,334 samples, including samples from patients with diarrhea, food of animal origin, and pets, across 5 provinces of China. The highest prevalence of Salmonella spp. was detected in chicken meats (39.3%, 486/1,237). Fifteen serogroups and 66 serovars were identified, with Salmonella enterica serovars Typhimurium and Enteritidis being the most dominant.

Phosphorothioate (PT) DNA modifications—in which a nonbonding phosphate oxygen is replaced with sulfur—represent a widespread, horizontally transferred epigenetic system in prokaryotes and have a highly unusual property of occupying only a small fraction of available consensus sequences in a genome. Using Salmonella enterica as a model, we asked a question...

Author(s): Jin Hwa Park, Mi Seon Kang, Kyung Min Park, Hee Young Lee, Gyeong Sik Ok, Min Seon Koo, Seok In Hong, Hyun Jung Kim

We aimed to perform serotyping and the antimicrobial resistance profile of Salmonella spp. and Listeria monocytogenes strains isolated from raw meats imported illegally into Brazil along the borders of Argentina and Uruguay. Distinct isolates of Salmonella spp. (n=6) and L. monocytogenes (n=25) obtained from 270 of these food products of earlier work were serotyped and tested for antimicrobial resistance by agar disc diffusion method.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the possible synergistic interactions on antibacterial and antioxidant efficacy of two plant essential oils (EOs) Eucalyptus caesia Benth and Dracocephalum multicaule Montbr & Auch in vitro and in pear slices.

On-site detection demands are quickly increasing to control foodborne pathogenic bacteria along with the long food supply chains. Combining the isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) with lateral flow strips (LFSs) is a promising molecular detection approach for the short reaction time, low isothermal condition, and simple and “instrument-free” procedure. However, the method comes with a non-negligible intrinsic risk of the primer-dependent artifacts.

Salmonella Typhimurium uses a type three secretion system (T3SS) encoded on the Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 (SPI1) to invade intestinal epithelial cells and induce inflammatory diarrhea. The SPI1 T3SS is regulated by numerous environmental and physiological signals, integrated to either activate or repress invasion.

Recent studies have determined that inflammasome signaling plays an important role in driving intestinal epithelial cell (IEC) responses to bacterial infections, such as Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. There are two primary inflammasome pathways, canonical (involving caspase-1) and noncanonical (involving caspase-4 and -5 in humans and caspase-11 in mice).

Author(s): Akshatha Kotian, Vankadari Aditya, Kadeeja Jazeela, Iddya Karunasagar, Indrani Karunasagar, Vijaya Kumar Deekshit

Author(s): Kapudeep Karmakar, Sindhu Krishna, Sabyasachi Majumdar, Utpal Nath, Karaba N. Nataraj, N.B. Prakash, Dipshikha Chakravortty

BACKGROUND The development of brewer's spent grain protein films with potential active packaging properties was investigated. Films were prepared by casting protein dispersions at different pHs (2, 8, 11), plasticizers (polyethylene glycol –PEG– or glycerol), and levels (0–0.25 g g−1) of PEG. Mechanical, water‐barrier and solubility, optical, antioxidant (reducing power, ABTS•+ and lipidic radical scavenging), and antimicrobial properties of films were determined.

Photothermal effect of nanomaterial has been applied to the establishment of rapid detection method such as test strip. Previously, the detector for the photothermal test strip method mainly was a bulky thermal imaging camera or an infrared-sensing temperature sensor of which the detection data obtained is unstable due to its susceptibility to environmental changes. Herein, a resistive temperature sensor which is more stable and less susceptible to external environment was adopted.

Purpose Salmonellosis is one of several reportable diseases in Ontario (ON). Two or more cases of the same serotype that are linked to a common exposure or related to one another in time and/or space are considered a potential outbreak. While laboratory data can help to determine the molecular relatedness of cases, results may take up to several weeks.

Author(s): Sonia Ktari, Boutheina Ksibi, Kais Ghedira, Laetitia Fabre, Sophie Bertrand, Sonda Maalej, Basma Mnif, Faouzia Rhimi, Simon Le Hello, Adnene Hammami

The Florida Complaint and Outbreak Reporting System (FL-CORS) database is used by the Florida Department of Health’s Food and Waterborne Disease Program (FWDP) as one of the tools to detect foodborne disease outbreaks. We present a descriptive and spatial network analysis of the FL-CORS data collected during 2015-2018.

Complete genome sequences of eight isolates of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica from Canadian wild birds were determined by MinION and Illumina MiSeq sequencing. Assembled chromosomes had an average size of 4,833,662 bp. Salmonella enterica serovar Worthington obtained from partridge and quail carried 267-kb plasmids, which contained multiple antimicrobial resistance genes.

The microbiota plays a vital role in maintaining gut health and influences the overall performance of chickens. Most gut microbiota-related studies have been performed in broilers, which have different microbial communities compared to those of layers. The normal gut microbiota of laying chickens is dominated by Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Fusobacteria, and Actinobacteria at the phylum level.

Food safety is a new area for novel applications of metagenomics analysis, which not only can detect and subtype foodborne pathogens in a single workflow but may also produce additional information with in-depth analysis capabilities.

Dissemination of extended-spectrum-cephalosporin (ESC)-resistant Salmonella, especially extended-spectrum-β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Salmonella, is a concern worldwide. Here, we assessed Salmonella carriage by food workers in Japan to clarify the prevalence of ESC-resistant Salmonella harboring blaCTX-M. We then characterized the genetic features, such as transposable elements, of blaCTX-M-harboring plasmids using whole-genome sequencing.

The "Moore swab" is a classic environmental surveillance tool whereby a gauze pad tied with string is suspended in flowing water or wastewater contaminated with human feces and harboring enteric pathogens that pose a human health threat. In contrast to single volume "grab" samples, Moore swabs act as continuous filters to "trap" microorganisms, which are subsequently isolated and confirmed using appropriate laboratory methods.

This study identifies a strain of Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica serovar Enteritidis that harbors a highly unusual virulence plasmid. During the characterisation of a group of S.

Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is the method of choice for bacterial subtyping and it is rapidly replacing the more traditional methods such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Here we used the high-resolution core genome single nucleotide variant (cgSNV) typing method to characterize clinical and food from Salmonella enterica serovar Heidelberg isolates in the context of source attribution.

An experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of Bacillus subtilis RX7 and B2A supplementation on egg production, egg quality, blood profile, and excreta Salmonella population in laying hens. A total of 192 Hy-Line Brown laying hens (40-wk-old) were randomly assigned into four dietary treatments, each of which was replicated eight times with six hens per replicate in a 5 wk trial.