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Imprint
Pathogenic E. coli in fresh produce production
Project
Project code: BfR-BIOS-08-1322-616
Contract period: 01.01.2016
- 31.12.2016
Purpose of research: Applied research
The increasing consumption of fresh produce leads to higher exposition of the consumer to food-associated pathogens. Especially with the background of raw eaten salad and sprouts where already small numbers of pathogens can have a great impact. The three most important outbreak causing biological agents in fresh produce are Norovirus, Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli with the main focus on STEC. Reports exist that up to 30% of all caused outbreaks are fresh produce associated with mainly lettuce and sprouts as vector. The outbreak 2011 in Germany caused by an STEC of serotype O104:H4 was also epidemiologically linked to contaminated germinated sprouts. Beside the data obtained during outbreak investigation further information regarding important virulence and pathogenicity characteristics of routinely isolated strains are needed. Therefore, genetic background of adherence, toxin- and biofilm production shall be analyzed and phylogenetic distribution of the strains be determined. The obtained data will be compared to known pathogenic / clinical strains to better assess the risk potential of the isolated strains. The NRL E. coli has a number of isolates from fresh produce including the routine data. These strains shall be further characterized and additionally differentiated and grouped phylogenetically using MLST. Based on these data representative strains are selected for further experiments regarding the optimization of detection methods of STEC from fresh produce including sprouts. The isolation of pathogenic E. coli from fresh produce is difficult due to the high amount of the plants own microbiota which often cannot be inhibited sufficiently by selective enrichment methods. Additionally, non-pathogenic E. coli complicate the selective enrichment and isolation of their pathogenic relatives. Therefore, specific detectors need to be identified to determine the most important E. coli pathotypes (EHEC, STEC, EPEC, EIEC, EAEC, ETEC) from fresh produce. Furthermore these detectors can then be evaluated in artificially and naturally contaminated fresh produce regarding their specificity and selectivity. In addition further development of specific growth media and selective methods for enrichment, recognition and isolation of pathogenic E. coli from mixed bacterial communities (fresh produce) is the aim.
Section overview
Subjects
- Food microbiology
