Chitlapilly Dass Sapna, Bosilevac Joseph M, Weinroth Maggie, Elowsky Christian G, Zhou You, Anandappa Angela, Wang Rong
Department of Animal Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845 USA.
U. S. Department of Agriculture, Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, Lincoln, NE 68933-0166 USA.
NPJ Sci Food. 2020 Oct 14;4:16. doi: 10.1038/s41538-020-00076-x. eCollection 2020.
Biofilm formation by foodborne pathogens is a serious threat to food safety and public health. Meat processing plants may harbor various microorganisms and occasional foodborne pathogens; thus, the environmental microbial community might impact pathogen survival via mixed biofilm formation. We collected floor drain samples from two beef plants with different O157:H7 prevalence history and investigated the effects of the environmental microorganisms on pathogen sanitizer tolerance. The results showed that biofilm forming ability and bacterial species composition varied considerably based on the plants and drain locations. O157:H7 cells obtained significantly higher sanitizer tolerance in mixed biofilms by samples from the plant with recurrent O157:H7 prevalence than those mixed with samples from the other plant. The mixed biofilm that best protected O157:H7 also had the highest species diversity. The percentages of the species were altered significantly after sanitization, suggesting that the community composition affects the role and tolerance level of each individual species. Therefore, the unique environmental microbial community, their ability to form biofilms on contact surfaces and the interspecies interactions all play roles in O157:H7 persistence by either enhancing or reducing pathogen survival within the biofilm community.
食源性病原体形成生物膜对食品安全和公众健康构成严重威胁。肉类加工厂可能存在各种微生物以及偶尔出现的食源性病原体；因此，环境微生物群落可能通过混合生物膜的形成影响病原体的存活。我们从两家具有不同O157:H7流行历史的牛肉加工厂采集了地漏样本，并研究了环境微生物对病原体消毒剂耐受性的影响。结果表明，生物膜形成能力和细菌种类组成因工厂和排水口位置的不同而有很大差异。与来自另一家工厂的样本混合相比，从O157:H7反复流行的工厂采集的样本在混合生物膜中使O157:H7细胞获得了显著更高的消毒剂耐受性。对O157:H7保护效果最佳的混合生物膜也具有最高的物种多样性。消毒后物种百分比发生了显著变化，这表明群落组成会影响每个物种的作用和耐受水平。因此，独特的环境微生物群落、它们在接触表面形成生物膜的能力以及种间相互作用，都通过增强或降低生物膜群落内病原体的存活率，在O157:H7的持续存在中发挥作用。
