Monitoring and Mitigations to Improve Safety of Agricultural Water

The overall goal of this proposal is to investigate strategies for improving both monitoring and mitigation of foodborne pathogens in the agricultural environment and on food products. Efforts for improved monitoring will delineate mechanisms that induce bacteria to become viable but nonculturable (VBNC),as well as exploit pathways that lead to theresuscitation from the VBNC state and return to culturability.By definintion VBNC bacteria are not detected by standard culture methods, particularly those that involve growth on selective agars. In order to improve the limit of detection, many assays for food microbiology include an enrichment step in liquid medium; however, whether or not that step facilitates recovery from VBNC is not clear. Improved mitigation studies will focus on use of chitosan microparticles (CM) for sanitation of agriculture water and food products, as this treatment offers more cost effective, biodegradable, broad-spectrum applications that do not promote evolution of antimicrobial resistance.Objectives of proposed research related to improvemonitoring strategiesare described below:Characterize the role of the resuscitation promoting factor (RPF).Investigate application of RPF for improved detection and recovery of pathogensfrom inoculated and naturally contaminated water samples.Assess the prevalence and persistence of VBNCSalmonellaand pathogens in aquatic environments associated with irrigation and produce processing.Validate detection methods to improve pathogen detection from agricultural waters, as described in Lou et al., 2014.Objectives of proposed research to improvemitigation strategiesare described below:Implement improved sanitizing protocols for agricultural water and food product using chitosan microparticles (CM) as a treatment against both bacterial and viral pathogens.Investigatewhether or not CMpromotesantibiotic resistance and/orevolution of more virulent organisms.Provide cost analysis of the feasibility of CM applications.