No bacteria in your food? I don't think so...

No bacteria in your food? I don't think so...

Figure 1 Retrieved from: http://blog.infinityhealthwellness.com/2013/07/autistic-children-found-to-have-fewer.html

There exist high standards when talking about hygiene in food industry. But, there is one organism that is able to outsmart the processes to achieve these high standards. Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne bacterium that can reproduce in meat and cheese. This organism is well known for surviving under high stress conditions (alkaline and oxidative) that other microorganisms cannot. L. monocytogenes performs some genetic mechanisms that blocks the effect of cleaning solutions. This ability is encoded in their genome, and scientist are still working on understanding this genetic ability. They have hypervariable regions in their DNA, which means these regions often change and contains inserts (sections) that enhances L. monocytogenes survival. SSI-1 is the region of the DNA that provides survival against the hygiene standards in food processing. In addition, two other proteins, which code from genes, were observed to increase during stress conditions. One of these regulates activity of second protein, and the other is a protease that breaks down other proteins. Scientists keep investigating about the inhibition of these genes to improve hygiene standards. 

Reference:

         Veterinärmedizinische Universität Wien. (2017, August 30). An island getaway: Why some Listeria strains survive good food hygiene standards. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170830095024.htm