Department of Veterinary Disease Biology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark.
mBio. 2012 Aug 28;3(5):e00190-12. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00190-12. Print 2012.
Fermented sausages, although presumed safe for consumption, sometimes cause serious bacterial infections in humans that may be deadly. Not much is known about why and when this is the case. We tested the hypothesis that residual veterinary antibiotics in meat can disrupt the fermentation process, giving pathogenic bacteria a chance to survive and multiply. We found that six commercially available starter cultures were susceptible to commonly used antibiotics, namely, oxytetracycline, penicillin, and erythromycin. In meat, statutorily tolerable levels of oxytetracycline and erythromycin inhibited fermentation performance of three and five of the six starter cultures, respectively. In model sausages, the disruption of meat fermentation enhanced survival of the pathogens Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium compared to successful fermentations. Our work reveals an overlooked risk associated with the presence of veterinary drugs in meat.
Antibiotics have for a long time been used as growth promoters in farm animals, and while they are banned as such in Europe, their clinical use in farm animals still accounts for the majority of consumption. Here, we examined how acceptable levels of antibiotics in meat influence fermentation. Our results show that commonly used bacterial starter cultures are sensitive to residual antibiotics at or near statutorily tolerable levels, and as a result, processed sausages may indeed contain high levels of pathogens. Our findings provide a possible explanation for outbreaks and disease cases associated with consumption of fermented sausages and offer yet another argument for limiting the use of antimicrobials in farm animals.
发酵香肠虽然被认为可以安全食用，但有时会导致人类严重的细菌感染，甚至可能致命。目前对于为什么以及何时会出现这种情况知之甚少。我们检验了这样一个假设，即肉类中的残留兽医抗生素可能会破坏发酵过程，使致病菌有机会存活和繁殖。我们发现，六种市售的发酵剂容易受到常用抗生素，即土霉素、青霉素和红霉素的影响。在肉类中，法定允许的土霉素和红霉素残留水平分别抑制了六种发酵剂中的三种和五种的发酵性能。在模拟香肠中，与成功发酵相比，破坏肉类发酵会增强病原体大肠杆菌 O157:H7 和鼠伤寒沙门氏菌的存活能力。我们的工作揭示了肉类中存在兽医药物所带来的一个被忽视的风险。
抗生素长期以来一直被用作农场动物的生长促进剂，尽管在欧洲已被禁止作为此类用途，但它们在农场动物中的临床使用仍占大多数。在这里，我们研究了肉类中可接受的抗生素水平如何影响发酵。我们的结果表明，常用的细菌发酵剂对残留抗生素敏感，即使在法定允许的水平或接近该水平时也是如此，因此，加工香肠实际上可能含有高水平的病原体。我们的发现为与食用发酵香肠相关的爆发和疾病病例提供了可能的解释，并为限制在农场动物中使用抗生素提供了另一个论据。
