Vengarai Jagannathan Badrinath, Kitchens Steven, Priyesh Vijayakumar Paul, Price Stuart, Morgan Melissa
Department of Animal and Food Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40456, USA.
Department of Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA.
Microorganisms. 2021 Mar 6;9(3):544. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms9030544.
Fruits and vegetables are high in nutrients that are essential for a healthy lifestyle. However, they also harbor an extensive array of microorganisms such as bacteria, which can be beneficial, neutral, or pathogenic. Foodborne pathogens can contaminate produce at any stage from the farm to the consumer's table. Appropriate washing techniques using sanitizers can reduce the risk of pathogen contamination. Issues related to maintaining concentration, efficacy, and other problems have been a challenge for the food industry and, when left unresolved, have led to different outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. In this study, the efficacy of a lytic bacteriophage cocktail was examined for its ability to infect and reduce the contamination of O157:H7 ( O157:H7), in media with a high organic load, using a microplate technique. The study was conducted for 3 h to determine if the bacteriophage cocktail could reduce the pathogen in the presence of a high organic load. A significant ( < 0.05) reduction in the population of O157:H7 was observed, representing a 99.99% pathogen reduction at the end of 3 h. Fresh spinach leaves were washed in sterile potable or organic water (~9000 ppm organic load) containing O157:H7 and a bacteriophage cocktail to study the effectiveness of bacteriophages against the foodborne pathogen. Results indicated that the bacteriophage significantly ( < 0.05) reduced the contamination of O157:H7 in both situations. The study also demonstrated the bacteriophages' ability to infect and reduce the pathogen in an organic-rich environment. This characteristic differs from commercially available sanitizers that have demonstrated a tendency to bind with the available organic load. Thus, these studies highlight the advantage of employing bacteriophages during produce wash to eliminate foodborne pathogen contamination on fruits and vegetables.
水果和蔬菜富含对健康生活方式至关重要的营养物质。然而，它们也含有大量微生物，如细菌，这些细菌可能是有益的、中性的或致病的。食源性病原体可在从农场到消费者餐桌的任何阶段污染农产品。使用消毒剂的适当清洗技术可降低病原体污染风险。与保持浓度、效力及其他问题相关的事宜一直是食品行业面临的挑战，若不解决，会导致不同的食源性疾病暴发。在本研究中，使用微孔板技术，检测了一种裂解性噬菌体鸡尾酒在高有机负荷培养基中感染并减少O157:H7污染的能力。该研究进行了3小时，以确定噬菌体鸡尾酒在高有机负荷存在的情况下是否能减少病原体。观察到O157:H7菌量显著减少（P<0.05），在3小时结束时病原体减少了99.99%。将新鲜菠菜叶在含有O157:H7和噬菌体鸡尾酒的无菌饮用水或有机水（约9000 ppm有机负荷）中清洗，以研究噬菌体对食源性病原体的有效性。结果表明，在两种情况下，噬菌体均显著（P<0.05）减少了O157:H7的污染。该研究还证明了噬菌体在富含有机物的环境中感染并减少病原体的能力。这一特性不同于已证明有与可用有机负荷结合倾向的市售消毒剂。因此，这些研究突出了在农产品清洗过程中使用噬菌体以消除水果和蔬菜上食源性病原体污染的优势。
