Department of Food and Animal Biotechnology, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea; Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, College of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea.
Department of Food and Nutrition, College of Human Ecology, Yonsei University, Seoul, 03722, Republic of Korea.
Food Res Int. 2021 Jul;145:110415. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2021.110415. Epub 2021 May 18.
Heat treatment is an effective method for ensuring food safety and quality by controlling microbial contamination. However, food poisoning outbreaks have continuously occurred in heat-treated products due to improper thermal treatment and/or post-contamination of foodborne pathogens. This study proposes a novel strategy combining thermostable bacteriophages with thermal processing of food production plants to control foodborne pathogens and even bacterial contamination. Typically, bacteriophages' susceptibility to heat is a major challenge to their application with thermal processing, we isolated thermostable bacteriophages by a modified isolation method of applying heat to samples and characterized the thermostable bacteriophages. Furthermore, we optimized the bacteriophage cocktail components to expand the controllable host range and reduce the risk of bacteriophage resistance development. Finally, we verified this antibacterial strategy by combining heat treatment with thermostable bacteriophages in model systems, including milk and chicken breast. After the phage cocktail and heat treatment, we artificially contaminated the food products to mimic the post-contamination event. Surprisingly, the remaining bacteriophages that withstood heat treatment significantly reduced the number of post-contaminated Salmonella. Altogether, thermostable phages could be applied as complementary tools to control post-contamination after thermal processing of food products.
热处理是通过控制微生物污染来确保食品安全和质量的有效方法。然而，由于热处理不当和/或食源性致病菌的再次污染，热加工产品中不断发生食物中毒事件。本研究提出了一种将耐热噬菌体与食品生产厂的热加工相结合的新策略，以控制食源性致病菌甚至细菌污染。通常，噬菌体对热的敏感性是其与热加工应用的主要挑战，我们通过对样品施加热的改良分离方法分离耐热噬菌体，并对耐热噬菌体进行了表征。此外，我们优化了噬菌体鸡尾酒成分，以扩大可控宿主范围并降低噬菌体耐药性发展的风险。最后，我们通过在模型系统（包括牛奶和鸡胸肉）中结合热处理和耐热噬菌体来验证这种抗菌策略。在噬菌体鸡尾酒和热处理之后，我们人工污染了食品以模拟再次污染事件。令人惊讶的是，经受住热处理的剩余噬菌体显著减少了人工污染的沙门氏菌数量。总的来说，耐热噬菌体可以作为热加工食品后再次污染的补充控制工具。
