후춧가루에 존재하는 식중독 균을 저감화시키기 위한 방법으로 UV-C와 mild heat를 병합 처리 가능성을 타진하였다. Escherichia coli O157:H7 (ATCC 35150)와 Salmonella Typhimurium (ATCC 19585)를 후춧가루에 각각 106, 107 CFU/g 수준으로 인위접종하여 2.32 W/cm2의 UV-C와 60℃ 의 mild heat을 10분에서 70분 동안 처리하였다. 그 후 미생물 분석 및 후춧가루의 품질변화를 측정하였다. UV-C를 단독으로 70분 동안 처리했을 때 E. coli O157:H7과 S. Typhimurium는 각각 1.89, 2.24 log CFU/g 수준으로 감소하였지만, UV-C와 mild heat을 70분 동안 병합처리 했을 때는 각각 2.46, 5.70 log CFU/g으로 감소하였다. E. coli O157:H7 보다는 S. Typhimurium의 저감효과가 더 컸다. 색도는 모든 처리구에서 유의적인 차이가 없는 것으로 나타났다. 따라서 UV-C와 mild heat 병합처리는 후춧가루에 존재하는 식중독 균을 사멸시키는 데 효과적이기 때문에 산업적인 살균처리 기술로 활용될 수 있을 것으로 판단되었다.

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O157:H7 is a food-borne bacterial pathogen that causes various diseases in both humans and animals such as hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uremic syndrome. Because cattle are the main reservoir of this microorganism, undercooked meat and meat byproducts contaminated with EHEC O157:H7 are most commonly associated with epidemic disease outbreaks. As an enteric pathogen, EHEC O157:H7 enters the body via a fecal-oral route and must survive passage through the gastric stomach at pH 1.5 to 3.5 to establish an infection within the gastrointestinal tracts. Therefore, the ability to resist such acidic environments is important to the pathogenesis of EHEC O157:H7 during a host infection. In this review, we will discuss on the acid resistance (AR) mechanisms induced by EHEC O157:H7 when E. coli encounters acidic environments.

Stream of afterglow of an atmospheric pressure plasma can conveniently be used for large scale decontamination operations. In the present study, an afterglow dielectric-barrier discharge air plasma (ADDAP) was used to inactivate Escherichia coli O157:H7 as a model microorganism for studying the plasma inactivation effect. The plasma was generated at current levels in the range of 0.4 - 0.8 A. The power consumption of ADDAP generation system ranged 169.5 - 221.9 W with respect to the current intensity range. At this current level, the temperature observed in the treatment chamber remained less than 30℃. Regarding chemical composition of ADDAP in the treatment chamber, NOx species were predominantly generated. The levels of NOx species increased as the current intensity increases and the maximum NO and NO2, concentrations noted were 6 and 4 ppm, respectively, but that of CO was less than 1 ppm level at 0.8 A. Upon treating with the ADDAP generated at 0.4 - 0.8 A for 180 min, E. coli O157:H7 showed 1.24 – 2.71 log reductions. The inactivation patterns exhibited better fit to Weibull-tail model. The comparison of delta values indicated that superior inactivation effects were observed as the current intensity increased.

대부분의 세균은 표면에서 바이오필름을 형성한 상태로 존재하며, 식품 가공시설이나 주방 배수구 등의 경우 식품 접촉표면에서 잔류하는 음식물 찌꺼기와 미생물 세포의 정착으로 바이오필름을 형성한다. 표면에서 형성된 바이오필름은 제품 및 기기․기구의 교차 오염의 원인이 되며 식품을 매개로 한 식중독 발병의 가능성이 있어 식품 안전성의 잠재적 위해 요소가 된다. 본 연구는 식중독 발생 원인균인 E. coli에 의해 형성되는 바이오필름을 조사하기 위하여 수행되었으며, 바이오필름은 스테인리스 스틸 쿠폰 표면에 형성되어 부착된 세균수로 측정하였다. 연구 결과 Tryptic soy broth 배지에서 37℃에서 7일간 배양 할 때 쿠폰 표면에 대장균으로 인한 바이오필름이 형성되며, 이 때 대장균수는 3.98 log CFU/cm2로 측정되었다.

The outbreaks of foodborne diseases associated with bacterial contamination are still critical issues all over the world. To ensure food safety, the diagnosis of pathogenic bacteria on site at early state of contamination are required. Escherichia coli O157:H7 (E. Coli O157:H7) is one of the major factor causing foodborne diseases. We introduce a sandwich type colorimetric detection method integrated with chitosan-coated starch magnetic polymer beads(CS@SMBs) that can separate and concentrate bacteria in aqueous environment. For signal amplification, horseradish peroxidase-conjugated antibody (HRP-Antibody) and 3,3',5,5'- tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) were employed as enzyme label and chromogenic substrate, respectively. We demonstrate that CS@SMBs not only show a good magnetic sensitivity, but also can capture a variety of bacteria regardless of Gram-negative and Gram-positive, which offer possibility for separation of the broad range of bacteria from food matrix. Our approach successfully captures E. coli O157:H7 with detection limit of 101 CFU/mL through naked eye, making promise of fast, on-site, and sensitive detection of pathogenic bacteria.

Due to the globalization of food supply have been growing, there have been a great demands for food safety and quality assuarance for on-site detection. On-site detetction isuue is the process should be fast, simple, user-friendly and require minimal equipments. Herein, we developed a Radial chromatography (RC) biosensor integrated with the immuno-gold nanoparticles-coated magnetic nanoparticle (AuNPs@Fe3O4) for specific separation and detection of the target bacteria, E. coli O157:H7, in sample. The immuno-AuNPs@Fe3O4 specifically binds to E.coli O157:H7 creating AuNP@Fe3O4-E.coli complexes and captured bacteria were concentrated by magnet. The complex can be identified with inner ring derived from the difference of mobility of free AuNPs@Fe3O4 on the RC sensor. Our results show that AuNPs@Fe3O4 based RC sensor has high sensitivity to the target bacteria over non-target bacteria with a detection limit of 103 CFU/ml. Our system offers a rapid and sensitive means of detecting E.coli O157:H7 with naked eyes, which can be applied to the field diagnosis.

Rapid, simple, and sensitive detection of pathogen bacteria is a highly topical research area due to increasingly concerning of food safety and public health. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a promising and attractive technique offering fast, sensitive, comparatively low-cost, and in-suit detection of pathogenic bacteria. However, this technique requires the preparation step for reducing the noise derived from heterogeneous matrixes of food sample. Immunomagnetic separation (IMS) is widely used technique enabling separation and concentration of the target analyte. It can be used not only laboratory scale but also field diagnosis easily. Here, we synthesized gold-shelled starch magnetic microparticles (GS@SMMPs) for effective separation and concentration of Escherichia coli O157:H7, which were subsequently subjected to SERS integrated with gold-coated 3D-well substrate for bacterial detection in aqueous solution. GS@SMMPs were labelled by Anti-E. coli O157 monoclonal antibody through gold binding protein and staphylococcal protein G (GBP-SPG) fusion protein. In IMS experiment, the immuno-GS@SMMPs showed high capture efficiency over 90% to E. coli O157:H7, which resulted in 10 times decrease in detection limit in PCR assay. Through SERS assay, E. coli O157:H7 concentrated by immuno-GS@SMMPs were successfully detected even at an extremely low concentration of 101 CFU/ml the subjected to SERS. Moreover, by using sandwich method using SERS reporter consisting of GBP-SPG, we found that E. coli O157:H7 were able to be detected by SERS quantitatively through measuring the SERS intensity of GBP-SPG. This novel strategy combining SERS and IMS could be meaningful for extending the application in SERS for in-suit sensitive detection of pathogenic bacteria.