By Luis Duron
Food-borne diseases are currently a dilemma in
foods and food processing plants. Listeria
monocytogenes causes listeriosis a rare but severe food-borne disease.
Listeriosis has a fatality rate of 16% and affects primarily elderly, pregnant women,
and compromised immune systems individuals. A recent study, investigated 138
isolates from foods and food processing plants, and determined different trends
associated in frequency of L.
monocytogenes resistance to benzalkonium chloride (BC), cadmium, and
arsenic. Resistance to cadmium and BC was common among all the isolates, while,
combination of resistant of arsenic and cadmium were found in only certain
isolates from foods and food processing plants. Developing new disinfectants to
eliminate food-borne pathogens from foods is essential, since; this recent
study has shown L. monocytogenes becoming
resistant to current disinfectants used in food processing plants.
Figure 1. The bar graph (Ratani et al. 2012) illustrates the
serotype-associated trends of resistance to BC, cadmium, and arsenic in L. monocytogenes isolates from food and
environmental sources.
Ratani SS, Siletsky RM, Dutta V, Yildirim S, Osborne JA, Lin
W. et al. 2012. Heavy Metal and Disinfectant Resistant of Listeria monocytogenes from Foods and Food Processing Plants.
Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 19:6938 – 6945.
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