Abstract
Campylobacter jejuni, a leading cause of foodborne disease in humans, associate primarily with consumption of contaminated poultry and poultry products. Intervention strategies aimed at reducing C. jejuni contamination on poultry products could significantly reduce C. jejuni infection in humans. This study evaluated the efficacy of gum arabic (GA) and chitosan (CH) fortified with carvacrol (CR) as an antimicrobial coating treatment for reducing C. jejuni on chicken wingettes. Aforementioned compounds are generally recognized as safe status compounds obtained from gum arabic tree, crustaceans and oregano oil respectively. A total of four separate trials were conducted in which wingettes were randomly assigned to baseline, saline control (wingettes washed with saline), GA (10%), CH (2%), CR (0.25, 0.5, or 1%) or their combinations. Each wingette was inoculated with a cocktail of four wild-type strains of C. jejuni (∼7.5 log10 cfu/sample). Following 1 min of coating in aforementioned treatments, wingettes were air dried (1 h) and sampled at 0, 1, 3, 5, and 7 days of refrigerated storage for C. jejuni and total aerobic counts (n = 5 wingettes/treatment/day). In addition, the effect of treatments on wingette color was measured using a Minolta colorimeter. Furthermore, the effect of treatments on the expression of C. jejuni survival/virulence genes was evaluated using real-time quantitative PCR. Results showed that all three doses of CR, CH or GA-based coating fortified with CR reduced C. jejuni from day 0 through 7 by up to 3.0 log10 cfu/sample (P < 0.05). The antimicrobial efficacy of GA was improved by CR and the coatings reduced C. jejuni by ∼1 to 2 log10 cfu/sample at day 7. Moreover, CH + CR coatings reduced total aerobic counts when compared with non-coated samples for a majority of the storage times. No significant difference in the color of chicken wingettes was observed between treatments. Exposure of pathogen to sublethal concentrations of CR, CH or combination significantly modulated select genes encoding for energy taxis (cetB), motility (motA), binding (cadF), and attachment (jlpA). The results suggest that GA or CH-based coating with CR could potentially be used as a natural antimicrobial to control C. jejuni in postharvest poultry products.
Highlights
Campylobacter jejuni infection in humans continues to be a significant public health problem throughout the world (Crim et al, 2015; Mangen et al, 2016)
One loopful of glycerol stock of the wild-type strain C. jejuni was inoculated into 5 mL of Campylobacter Enrichment Broth (CEB; Catalog No 7526A, Neogen Corp, Lansing, MI, United States) and incubated at 42 C in a microaerophilic atmosphere (5% O2, 10% CO2, and 85% N2) for 48 h
We evaluated the potential of Gum arabic (GA) or CH-based edible coatings fortified with CR to reduce C. jejuni on chicken wingettes
Summary
Campylobacter jejuni infection in humans continues to be a significant public health problem throughout the world (Crim et al, 2015; Mangen et al, 2016). In the United States, Campylobacter causes 1.3 million illnesses each year and contaminated chicken meat is considered as one of the primary sources of Campylobacter infection in humans (Crim et al, 2015). Epidemiological studies have shown that up to 70–80% of retail raw chicken meat in the United States is contaminated with Campylobacter (Cui et al, 2005). The high level, 107 cfu/g of cecal content, of Campylobacter in the ceca of market age birds (Rudi et al, 2004) leads to potential carcass contamination at processing plants thereby posing a serious public health threat. The concerns are further raised due to the low infective dose (∼500 cells; Kothary and Babu, 2001) required to cause infection in humans and potentially fatal sequelae such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (Hughes and Cornblath, 2005)
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