Abstract
Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a human food-borne pathogen with the ability to enter the food chain. It is able to acquire a viable, non-cultivable state (VBNC), which is not detected by traditional methods. The combination of the direct viable count method and a fluorescent in situ hybridization technique (DVC-FISH) makes it possible to detect microorganisms that can present VBNC forms in complex samples The optimization of the in vitro DVC-FISH technique for V. parahaemolyticus was carried out. The selected antibiotic was ciprofloxacin at a concentration of 0.75 μg/mL with an incubation time in DVC broth of 5 h. The DVC-FISH technique and the traditional plate culture were applied to detect and quantify the viable cells of the affected pathogen in artificially contaminated food matrices at different temperatures. The results obtained showed that low temperatures produced an important logarithmic decrease of V. parahaemolyticus, while at 22 °C, it proliferated rapidly. The DVC-FISH technique proved to be a useful tool for the detection and quantification of V. parahaemolyticus in the two seafood matrices of oysters and mussels. This is the first study in which this technique has been developed to detect viable cells for this microorganism.
Highlights
Composed of more than 100 species, the Vibrio genus is a Gram-negative curved rod bacterium
An optimized protocol was established for the specific detection of viable V. parahaemolyticus cells
Elongation of viable cells occurred with the three concentrations of ciprofloxacin (0.75, 1 and 1.5 μg/mL), at 0.75 μg/mL, greater elongation was detected
Summary
Composed of more than 100 species, the Vibrio genus is a Gram-negative curved rod bacterium. V. vulnificus can cause gastroenteritis or severe wound infections due to exposure to highly contaminated water [6,7,8] and, in high-risk groups with their immune systems compromised, it can cause septicemia [9]. V. parahaemolyticus is recognized as the leading cause of diarrheal disease linked to the consumption of raw, inadequately cooked or contaminated-after-cooking seafood, oysters [6,7,8,11] The infection with this species is less serious than the one with Vibrio vulnificus, and it is generally not associated with death. These ISO standard methods did not provide accurate quantification because the VBNC forms were not detected
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