Abstract
Listeria monocytogenes is a human food-borne facultative intracellular pathogen that is resistant to a wide range of stress conditions. As a consequence, L. monocytogenes is extremely difficult to control along the entire food chain from production to storage and consumption. Frequent and recent outbreaks of L. monocytogenes infections illustrate that current measures of decontamination and preservation are suboptimal to control L. monocytogenes in food. In order to develop efficient measures to prevent contamination during processing and control growth during storage of food it is crucial to understand the mechanisms utilized by L. monocytogenes to tolerate the stress conditions in food matrices and food processing environments. Food-related stress conditions encountered by L. monocytogenes along the food chain are acidity, oxidative and osmotic stress, low or high temperatures, presence of bacteriocins and other preserving additives, and stresses as a consequence of applying alternative decontamination and preservation technologies such high hydrostatic pressure, pulsed and continuous UV light, pulsed electric fields (PEF). This review is aimed at providing a summary of the current knowledge on the response of L. monocytogenes toward these stresses and the mechanisms of stress resistance employed by this important food-borne bacterium. Circumstances when L. monocytogenes cells become more sensitive or more resistant are mentioned and existence of a cross-resistance when multiple stresses are present is pointed out.
Highlights
Along the food chain, bacteria are constantly exposed to a wide range of stress factors, which affect their activity and viability
The D63◦C value, which is the time required to kill 90% of bacteria when exposed to the temperature of 63◦C, for Scott A strain inoculated in egg products with 10% NaCl increased approximately 6 times in comparison with that of the same strain processed in egg products without salt (Bartlett and Hawke, 1995)
L. monocytogenes is able to use diverse mechanisms to survive various stress conditions encountered in food matrices
Summary
Bacteria are constantly exposed to a wide range of stress factors, which affect their activity and viability. L. monocytogenes Resistance in Foods that frequently causes food recalls and disease outbreaks with significant case numbers and a mortality rate of 20–30%3 worldwide (Buchanan et al, 2017). This organism is known for its ability to survive or even to replicate under a wide range of environmental stress conditions (Gandhi and Chikindas, 2007; Ferreira et al, 2014; Gahan and Hill, 2014). It contributes to the ability of this bacterium to infect humans (Sleator et al, 2009)
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