Abstract
The lesser-known traditionally processed meat products such as beef kargyong, pork kargyong, satchu, and khyopeh are popular food items in the Himalayan state of Sikkim in India. The present study aimed to assess the microbiological safety of traditional meat products by identifying the potential spoilage or pathogenic bacteria, detecting the enterotoxins, and screening the antibiotic susceptibility patterns. The pH and moisture contents of the meat products varied from 5.3 to 5.9 and from 1.5 to 18%, respectively. The microbial loads of aerobic bacteria were 105 to 107 cfu/g, Staphylococcus 103 to 106 cfu/g, Bacillus 104 to 106 cfu/g, and total coliform 102 to 107 cfu/g, respectively. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing, the bacterial species isolated from traditionally processed meat products were Staphylococcus piscifermentans, Citrobacter freundii, Enterococcus faecalis, Salmonella enterica, Staphylococcus aureus, Citrobacter werkmanii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Macrococcus caseolyticus, Klebsiella aerogenes, Staphylococcus saprophyticus, Pseudocitrobacter anthropi, Citrobacter europaeus, Shigella sonnei, Escherichia fergusonii, Klebsiella grimontii, Burkholderia cepacia, and Bacillus cereus. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) tests detected Salmonella spp. and enterotoxins produced by B. cereus well as Staphylococcus in a few tested samples. However, the PCR method did not detect the virulence genes of B. cereus and Salmonella in the isolates. Virulence gene (sea) was detected in S. piscifermentans BSLST44 and S. piscifermentans BULST54 isolated from beef kargyong and in S. aureus PSST53 isolated from pork kargyong. No enterotoxins were detected in khyopeh samples. The antibiotic sensitivity test showed that all bacterial strains were susceptible toward gentamicin, cotrimoxazole, norfloxacin, and trimethoprim. Gram-positive bacteria showed 100% sensitivity against clindamycin and erythromycin; however, 50% of the resistance pattern was observed against oxacillin followed by penicillin (33%) and ampicillin (27%).
Highlights
Meat and meat products are important dietary cultures of many communities in the world, among which some popular meat products such as sausages, hams, salami, etc. have been extensively studied in terms of microbiological safety, health benefits, and process technology (Petit et al, 2014; Santiyanont et al, 2019; Tamang et al, 2020)
The positive control strains used for the test includes Escherichia coli (MTCC 443, IMTECH, India) for Gram-negative bacteria and S. aureus (MTCC 96, IMTECH, India) for Grampositive bacteria
A higher mean value of aerobic bacterial count was observed in beef kargyong with 9.3 × 106 cfu/g and a lower mean value of 1.2 × 106 cfu/g was found in khyopeh, respectively
Summary
Meat and meat products are important dietary cultures of many communities in the world, among which some popular meat products such as sausages, hams, salami, etc. have been extensively studied in terms of microbiological safety, health benefits, and process technology (Petit et al, 2014; Santiyanont et al, 2019; Tamang et al, 2020). There is a probability of occurrence of pathogenic organisms such as Shiga toxin-producing enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella, Campylobacter spp., and Listeria monocytogenes in meat products (Morales-López et al, 2019). Varieties of lesser-known and region-specific traditionally processed meat products, produced either by smoking/sun drying or fermentation of domesticated animals such as goat, sheep, pig, ox, and yak, are consumed by different ethnic communities in Asia. Processed meat (beef, sheep, pig, and yak) products in India are chartayshya, jamma, and arjia of Uttarakhand (Oki et al, 2011); kargyong, satchu, and suka ko masu of Sikkim; and sa-um of Mizoram (Rai et al, 2009; De Mandal et al, 2018). Few species of bacteria were reported earlier from kargyong, satchu, and suka ko masu of Sikkim, purely based on limited phenotypic and biochemical tests, which included Lb. sakei, Lb. divergens, Lb. carnis, Lb. sanfransisco, Lb. curvatus, Leuc. mesenteroides, E. faecium, Bacillus subtilis, B. mycoides, B. thuringiensis, S. aureus, and Micrococcus (Rai et al, 2010)
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