Abstract
Presently, biopreservation through protective bacterial cultures and their antimicrobial products or using antibacterial compounds derived from plants are proposed as feasible strategies to maintain the long shelf-life of products. Another emerging category of food biopreservatives are bacteriophages or their antibacterial enzymes called “phage lysins” or “enzybiotics”, which can be used directly as antibacterial agents due to their ability to act on the membranes of bacteria and destroy them. Bacteriophages are an alternative to antimicrobials in the fight against bacteria, mainly because they have a practically unique host range that gives them great specificity. In addition to their potential ability to specifically control strains of pathogenic bacteria, their use does not generate a negative environmental impact as in the case of antibiotics. Both phages and their enzymes can favor a reduction in antibiotic use, which is desirable given the alarming increase in resistance to antibiotics used not only in human medicine but also in veterinary medicine, agriculture, and in general all processes of manufacturing, preservation, and distribution of food. We present here an overview of the scientific background of phages and enzybiotics in the food industry, as well as food applications of these biopreservatives.
Highlights
Food preservation by suitable means is key in food safety and quality
Several cofactors tested with phages used in the control of L. monocytogenes in the food industry have been recently reviewed by Kawacka and coworkers [26,149]
Many natural and eco-friendly methodologies for food preservation have been proposed in the last few years, but only limited data are available about the usefulness of most of them under industrial scale conditions, which needs proper attention to satisfy the requirements of the industry as well as the demand of the consumers [226,227,228,229,230]
Summary
Food preservation by suitable means is key in food safety and quality. There are several traditional and well-known physical preservation techniques such as refrigeration and pasteurization, but the modern industry is always looking for new procedures for food preservation to increase the product’s shelf-life by minimizing the loss of nutritional quality and organoleptic properties. Some modern biopreservation techniques rely on naturally occurring microorganisms (i.e., lactic acid bacteria) and their metabolites These food preservatives are mainly used to produce safer food for the consumer, preventing the action of pernicious microbes which can cause food deterioration or even toxicity and be dangerous to human health. Even with common treatments such as heat, team and UV light, a relatively high percentage of food products are lost due to subsequent microbial spoilage or microbial contamination; when food becomes contaminated, it will lead to food spoilage, and such food will no longer be fit for consumption Thanks to their ability to control or to inactivate spoilage and/or foodborne bacteria selectively, bacteriophages have great potential as food biopreservatives. We discuss the use of phages and their lytic enzymes as a tool to eliminate or reduce spoilage bacteria and common foodborne bacterial pathogens
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