Abstract
Fresh foods are vulnerable to foodborne pathogens which cause foodborne illness and endanger people’s life and safety. The rapid detection of foodborne pathogens is crucial for food safety surveillance. An in situ-synthesized gene chip for the detection of foodborne pathogens on fresh-cut fruits and vegetables was developed. The target genes were identified and screened by comparing the specific sequences of Salmonella Typhimurium, Vibrio parahemolyticus, Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Escherichia coli O157:H7 from the National Center for Biotechnology Information database. Tiling array probes were designed to target selected genes in an optimized hybridization system. A total of 141 specific probes were selected from 3,227 hybridization probes, comprising 26 L. monocytogenes, 24 S. aureus, 25 E. coli O157:H7, 20 Salmonella Typhimurium, and 46 V. parahemolyticus probes that are unique to this study. The optimized assay had strong amplification signals and high accuracy. The detection limit for the five target pathogens on fresh-cut cantaloupe and lettuce was approximately 3 log cfu/g without culturing and with a detection time of 24 h. The detection technology established in this study can rapidly detect and monitor the foodborne pathogens on fresh-cut fruits and vegetables throughout the logistical distribution chain, i.e., processing, cleaning, fresh-cutting, packaging, storage, transport, and sale, and represents a valuable technology that support the safety of fresh agricultural products.
Highlights
The incidence of foodborne diseases resulting from the consumption of food contaminated with pathogens has increased significantly in many countries over the last few decades (Fusco and Quero, 2014)
The purpose of this research was to develop a rapid detection technique based on an in situ-synthesized gene chip comprising of virulence genes for detecting Salmonella Typhimurium (ST), Listeria monocytogenes (LM), Staphylococcus aureus (SA), Vibrio parahemolyticus (VP), and Escherichia coli O157:H7 (EC O157:H7), which are commonly associated with fresh-cut fruits and vegetables
It is obvious that the signal values were observed on the positive probe site of the LM from the in situ-synthesized gene chip with SA (Figure 1C)
Summary
The incidence of foodborne diseases resulting from the consumption of food contaminated with pathogens has increased significantly in many countries over the last few decades (Fusco and Quero, 2014). The total cases from foodborne diseases reach 48,000,000 individuals, Detection of Food-Borne Pathogens with 128,000 patients in hospitals, and cause 3,000 deaths each year in the United States according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2011; Scallan et al, 2011). Food poisoning from fresh agricultural products contaminated with pathogens occurs with surprising frequency. With the increase in the demands for nutritious, healthy, and convenient foods, the consumption of fresh-cut produce involving fresh agricultural products has increased substantially worldwide (Oliveira et al, 2015; Ma et al, 2017). The processing of fresh-cut produce by cutting, shucking, carving, slicing, and peeling is highly susceptible to contamination by microorganisms and may lead to leakage or loss of nutrients (Gleeson and Beirne, 2005)
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