Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Portici 80055, Italy.
Department of Food Hygiene and Technology, Universidad de León, León 24007, Spain.
Food Res Int. 2022 Dec;162(Pt B):112202. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2022.112202. Epub 2022 Nov 19.
Daily consumption of fresh vegetables is highly recommended by international health organizations, because of their high content of nutrients. However, fresh vegetables might harbour several pathogenic microorganisms or contribute to spread antibiotic resistance, thus representing a hazard for consumers. In addition, little is known about the transmission routes of the residential microbiome from the food handling environment to vegetables. Therefore, we collected environmental and food samples from three manufactures producing fresh vegetables to estimate the relevance of the built environment microbiome on that of the finished products. Our results show that food contact surfaces sampled after routine cleaning and disinfection procedures host a highly diverse microbiome, including pathogens such as the enterotoxigenic Bacillus cereus sensu stricto. In addition, we provide evidence of the presence of a wide range of antibiotic resistance and virulence genes on food contact surfaces associated with multiple taxa, thus supporting the hypothesis that selection of resistant and pathogenic taxa might occur on sanitized surfaces. This study also highlights the potential of microbiome mapping routinely applied in food industries monitoring programs to ensure food safety.
国际卫生组织强烈建议人们每天食用新鲜蔬菜，因为它们含有丰富的营养成分。然而，新鲜蔬菜可能藏匿着几种致病微生物，或者有助于传播抗生素耐药性，从而对消费者构成威胁。此外，人们对于从食品处理环境到蔬菜的住宅微生物组的传播途径知之甚少。因此，我们从三个生产新鲜蔬菜的制造商那里收集了环境和食品样本，以评估建筑环境微生物组与成品之间的相关性。我们的研究结果表明，在常规清洁和消毒程序后采样的食物接触面宿主高度多样化的微生物组，包括肠毒素产生的蜡样芽孢杆菌等病原体。此外，我们还提供了在与多种分类群相关的食物接触面存在广泛的抗生素耐药性和毒力基因的证据，从而支持了在消毒表面选择耐药和致病分类群的假说。这项研究还强调了在食品工业监测计划中常规应用微生物组图谱来确保食品安全的潜力。
