Subcellular inactivation mechanisms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa treated by cold atmospheric plasma and application on chicken breasts.

As a novel microbe inactivation strategy, cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) technology has attracted great attractions in the past two decades. This study demonstrated that the CAP treatment was a robust inactivation approach for P. aeruginosa. Air and nitrogen-CAP achieved 100 % inactivation efficiency in 5 and 9 min, respectively. Furthermore, the inactivation mechanisms were explained by measuring several physicochemical indexes, including the characteristics of bacterial suspension, cell membrane integrity, cell viability, and the concentration of intracellular substances. The possible inactivation mechanisms might be that the RONS generated by air and nitrogen attacked the cell envelope, resulted in the leakage of intracellular substances; meanwhile, RONS also destroyed the intracellular anti-oxidative system, accelerated the oxidative stress and disrupted the intracellular redox homeostasis, subsequently the death of the cells. Moreover, the inactivation application in chicken breasts proved CAP could be a novel sanitizing process in practical industries.