Food Protection and Innovative Packaging Team, Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, Natick, Massachusetts, USA.
Design, Engineering and Fabrication Team, Engineering Cell, Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, Natick, Massachusetts, USA.
Appl Environ Microbiol. 2018 Apr 16;84(9). doi: 10.1128/AEM.00208-18. Print 2018 May 1.
Enhancements in swabbing technology to increase sample collection efficacy would benefit the food industry. Specifically, these enhancements would assist the food industry in implementing the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requirements by improving environmental monitoring effectiveness. A sonicating swab device, an example of an enhanced swabbing technology, was demonstrated previously to remove biofilm from stainless steel more efficiently than a standard cotton swab. Within this study, the performance of the sonicating swab was compared to that of the standard cotton swab for the recovery of from inoculated surfaces (plastic cutting board, wood cutting board, vinyl floor tile, and quarry clay floor tile). Additionally, we demonstrate the sonicating swab performance for collection of a microbiological sample from used commercial plastic cutting boards (noninoculated) in comparison to cotton swabs, foam swabs, and sponges. The sonicating swab captured significantly ( ≤ 0.05) more than the cotton swab for both the quarry tile and wood cutting board, while no significant differences were observed for the plastic cutting board or the vinyl floor tile. The sonicating swab consistently recovered significantly ( ≤ 0.05) more bacteria from the used cutting boards than did the standard cotton swab or the 3M Enviro swab, and it recovered significantly ( ≤ 0.05) more bacteria than the sponge swab for a majority of the time (4 of 6 trials). The results of this study indicate that swab technology can still be improved and that the sonicating swab is a viable technological enhancement which aids microbiological sample collection. Swabbing of surface areas for microbial contamination has been the standard for the detection and enumeration of microorganisms for many years. Inadequate surface sampling can result in foodborne illness outbreaks due to biotransfer of harmful microorganisms from food contact surfaces to foods. Swab material type, surface characteristics, and swabbing method used are a few of the factors associated with swabbing that can result in the variability of bacterial cell recovery for detection and enumeration. A previous study highlighted a sonicating swab prototype and its ability to recover cells from a stainless steel surface more efficiently and reliably than a standard swab method (T. A. Branck, M. J. Hurley, G. N. Prata, C. A. Crivello, and P. J. Marek, Appl Environ Microbiol 83:e00109-17, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.00109-17). This study expands upon the capabilities of the sonicating swab technology to recover cells from multiple surface types with increased performance over traditional swabbing methods as a tool to further assist in the prevention of foodborne illness outbreaks.
提高拭子技术以提高样本采集效果将使食品行业受益。具体来说，这些改进将通过提高环境监测效果来帮助食品行业实施 FDA 食品安全现代化法案 (FSMA) 的要求。超声拭子装置是增强型拭子技术的一个例子，它以前被证明比标准棉签更有效地从不锈钢上清除生物膜。在这项研究中，超声拭子的性能与标准棉签进行了比较，以从接种表面（塑料砧板、木砧板、乙烯基地板砖和 quarry 粘土地板砖）回收 。此外，我们还展示了超声拭子从使用过的商用塑料砧板（未接种）中收集微生物样本的性能，与棉签、泡沫拭子和海绵进行了比较。超声拭子从 quarry 瓷砖和木砧板中捕获的 显著（≤0.05）多于棉签，而在塑料砧板或乙烯基地板砖上没有观察到显著差异。与标准棉签或 3M Enviro 拭子相比，超声拭子从使用过的切菜板中回收的细菌数量始终显著（≤0.05），并且在大多数时间（6 次试验中的 4 次）都比海绵拭子回收的细菌数量显著（≤0.05）。这项研究的结果表明，拭子技术仍可以改进，超声拭子是一种可行的技术增强，有助于微生物样本采集。多年来，对微生物污染的表面进行拭子采样一直是检测和计数微生物的标准。由于有害微生物从食品接触表面转移到食品中，表面采样不足可能导致食源性疾病爆发。拭子材料类型、表面特性和使用的拭子方法是与拭子相关的一些因素，这些因素会导致细菌细胞回收率的变化，从而影响检测和计数。先前的一项研究强调了一种超声拭子原型及其从不锈钢表面更高效和可靠地回收细胞的能力，优于标准拭子方法（T. A. Branck、M. J. Hurley、G. N. Prata、C. A. Crivello 和 P. J. Marek， Appl Environ Microbiol 83:e00109-17，2017，https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.00109-17）。本研究扩展了超声拭子技术的功能，使其能够从多种表面类型中回收细胞，性能优于传统拭子方法，是进一步帮助预防食源性疾病爆发的工具。
