Foodborne pathogens have become a constant threat to the consumer and food industry.
Reduce efficacy of antibiotics with emergence of resistant bacteria has limited the opportunities
for controlling pathogenic bacteria in food commodities and treating foodborne infections.
Bacteriophages can be a promising alternative for alleviate the risk of transmitting pathogenic
bacteria via food commodities. Therefore, this research was conducted to find distribution of
bacteriophages in diverse niches in order to identify suitable sources for isolating bacteriophages
to use controlling foodborne pathogens. Firstly bacterial strains were screened for lysogenic and
selected suitable host bacterial strains were used for isolating and determining bacteriophage titer
in fresh raw food and environmental samples. Eighteen different lytic bacteriophages effective
against Campylobacter, S. aureus, L. monocytogenes and E. coli were isolated from this study.
Bacteriophages titer was determined within range of 102
to 1010 PFU/mL and bacteriophages
were most frequently isolated from chicken (60%) samples. The isolated bacteriophages could
be potential candidates for controlling foodborne diseases.
Salmonella has been reported to be presence both in raw and processed foods worldwide. In this study, the prevalence, quantification and antibiotic susceptibility of Salmonella isolated from raw vegetables or locally known as ulam such as asiatic pennywort (Centella asiatica (L) Urb), water dropwort (Oenanthe javanica (Blume) DC), long bean (Vigna sinensis EndL), and winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus (L) DC) obtained from retail markets in Selangor, Malaysia were carried out. From 96 samples tested, the overall prevalence of Salmonella spp. was 97.9%, Salmonella Enteritidis was 54.2% and Salmonella Typhimurium was 82.3% respectively. Samples were contaminated with Salmonella ranging from < 3 to 2400 MPN/g. Salmonella Enteritidis and Salmonella Typhimurium isolates obtained from the raw vegetables (ulam) were found to exhibit high resistance against ampicillin (100%), erythromycin (100%), amoxicillin/clavunic acid (81.3%), cephalothin (75%), streptomycin (50%) and ciprofloxacin (50%). All Salmonella isolates showed multi drug resistant (MDR) profile with each isolate being resistant to 3 or more antibiotics. The multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) index of Salmonella isolates ranged from 0.27 to 0.55 for Salmonella Enteritidis and 0.27 to 0.82 for Salmonella Typhimurium. The presence of Salmonella on raw vegetables (ulam) and high antibiotic resistance isolates indicated that raw vegetables could be contaminated and thus imposes possible health risk to local consumers.
Food safety in Malaysia is not considered an issue yet. From the previous year (2005-
2015) records, the incidence rate of food poisoning had been fluctuating and despite that,
cases continue to occur especially among school students. As a developing nation, it is
high-time that Malaysia begins to emphasize on food safety to reduce the burden of
foodborne illness in the socio-economic development of the country, and at the same time,
gain benefits in terms of economic returns and trade through food safety enforcement.
Most importantly, public health is achieved through food safety implementation and
accentuation. The current standing point of the Malaysia’s food safety is discussed in this
review. In addition, the review will also discuss the role of academicians as intervention
contributions in tackling food safety issues. The review is hoped to provide valuable and
concentrated information and knowledge to readers in the light to drive Malaysia into
ensuring safer food for the public.
Irrespective of its health effects, street foods are very popular with the consumers. The main
purpose of this research was to study the biosafety of Escherichia coli in popiah, a Malaysian
street food sold at a roadside food stall and a restaurant in Sri Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia,
using the combination of the most probable number (MPN)-Polymerase Chain Reaction
(PCR) assay-plating on Eosin Methylene Blue (EMB) agar methods. Using these biomolecular
methods, E. coli was detected in 12/15 (80%) and 11/15 (73%) of the collected samples from
the roadside food stall and the restaurant respectively. The incidence of stx virulence-associated
genes was detected in 1/15 (7%) among the E. coli isolated from samples taken from the
roadside food stall while the E. coli isolated from the restaurant was 3/15 (20%). The density
of E. coli ranged from 1100 MPN/g and the density of E. coli positive with stx genes
was
Bacteriophages are ubiquitous in our world, mainly in the oceans, soil, the water and food
we consume. They can be used efficiently in modern biotechnology, as well as alternatives
to antibiotics for many antibiotic resistant bacterial strains. Phages can be used as vehicles
for vaccines both DNA and protein, for the detection of pathogenic bacterial strain, as biocontrol
agents in agriculture and food industry. This review outlines the properties as well
as the influence of different external physical and chemical factors like temperature and
acidity on phage persistence. A better understanding of the complex problem of phage
sensitivity to external factors may be useful for other researchers working with phages.
Furthermore, the applications of bacteriophages were described in this paper as well.
Bacteriophages are the viruses of bacteria and are widely distributed in the biosphere, exhibiting
dramatic manifestations both in liquid cultures and on solid media. In this study, bacteriophages
were isolated from different types of food (beef, chicken meats, cucumber, lettuce, clam,
cockles and shrimp) and sewage samples using 6 reference pathogen strains (Salmonella
Enteritidis, Salmonella Typhimurium, Campylobacter jejuni, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Listeria
monocytogenes and Escherichia coli). A total of 29 bacteriophage isolates were obtained and
further examined for titer via agar overlay assay. The titers were determined within the range
of 108
to 1011 PFU/mL. Our results showed that diverse of bacteriophages are naturally present
in a variety of foods.
Listeriosis and salmonellosis are the major foodborne illnesses worldwide. Over the last decade,
increasing reports about the antibiotic resistance of Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella from diverse sources have prompted public health concerns, especially in developing countries with over reliance or misuse of antibiotic drugs in the treatment of humans and animals. In this study, antibiotic susceptibility profiles of 58 L. monocytogenes and 12 Salmonella Enteritidis strains from vegetable farms and retail markets in Malaysia were testedby the standard disk diffusion method. Listeria monocytogenes isolates were found to exhibit 100% resistance to penicillin G. Also, high resistance patterns were observed for meropenem (70.7%) and rifampicin (41.4%). The multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) index of L. monocytogenes isolates ranged from 0.11 to 0.56. Besides, the antibiogram results revealed that multidrugresistant (MDR) S. Enteritidis were detected and all the S. Enteritidis isolates demonstrated resistance to at least four antibiotics. Ampicillin, amoxicillin, and trimethoprim failed to inhibit all the S. Enteritidis strains. Salmonella Enteritidis isolates also displayed high resistance to nalidixic acid (75.0%), trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (75.0%), and chloramphenicol (66.7%). Findings in this study indicated that vegetables could be potential sources of multidrug resistance of L. monocytogenes and S. Enteritidis, which can be a serious issue and a major concern for public health. Thus, there is a great need for surveillance programs in Malaysia to continuously monitor the antibiotic resistance profiles of important pathogens.