Bacteriophage Applications for Food Production and Processing

Abstract

Foodborne illnesses remain a major cause of hospitalization and death worldwide despite many advances in food sanitation techniques and pathogen surveillance. Traditional antimicrobial methods, such as pasteurization, high pressure processing, irradiation, and chemical disinfectants are capable of reducing microbial populations in foods to varying degrees, but they also have considerable drawbacks, such as a large initial investment, potential damage to processing equipment due to their corrosive nature, and a deleterious impact on organoleptic qualities (and possibly the nutritional value) of foods. Perhaps most importantly, these decontamination strategies kill indiscriminately, including many—often beneficial—bacteria that are naturally present in foods. One promising technique that addresses several of these shortcomings is bacteriophage biocontrol, a green and natural method that uses lytic bacteriophages isolated from the environment to specifically target pathogenic bacteria and eliminate them from (or significantly reduce their levels in) foods. Since the initial conception of using bacteriophages on foods, a substantial number of research reports have described the use of bacteriophage biocontrol to target a variety of bacterial pathogens in various foods, ranging from ready-to-eat deli meats to fresh fruits and vegetables, and the number of commercially available products containing bacteriophages approved for use in food safety applications has also been steadily increasing. Though some challenges remain, bacteriophage biocontrol is increasingly recognized as an attractive modality in our arsenal of tools for safely and naturally eliminating pathogenic bacteria from foods.

Review article: bacteriophages in gastroenterology—from biology to clinical applications

“…Although phage therapy is not yet approved for human use in the European Union or in the United States, phages are already in use in the food industry and in agriculture. Phages targeting Listeria (ListShield™ and PhageGuard L™), E coli (EcoShield™), Salmonella (SalmoFresh™) and Shigella (ShigaShield™) are some examples of phages already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in the food industry . AgriPhage™, a phage targeting Xanthomonas campestris and Pseudomonas syringae , has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for use as a bactericide on tomatoes and peppers .…”

“…AgriPhage™, a phage targeting Xanthomonas campestris and Pseudomonas syringae , has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for use as a bactericide on tomatoes and peppers . Several other phages are being explored both in food and agriculture to prevent foodborne illness and decrease the use of antibiotics in food production …”

Bacteriophage ZCSE2 is a Potent Antimicrobial against Salmonella enterica Serovars: Ultrastructure, Genomics and Efficacy

“…Developing alternative non-antibiotic biocontrol techniques for eliminating pathogenic microorganisms from clinical settings, agricultural production environments, and retail food products constitutes an important avenue of research in antimicrobial development [31]. Phages that conform to the criteria of being strictly lytic (virulent), have a broad target host-range, and display a high degree of efficacy against their microbial hosts are ideal candidates for phage therapy and biosanitization applications.…”

Pantoea agglomerans-Infecting Bacteriophage vB_PagS_AAS21: A Cold-Adapted Virus Representing a Novel Genus within the Family Siphoviridae

“…The genus Pantoea is one of the predominant taxa in plant microbiomes and comprises both pathogenic and beneficial species that can survive as epiphytes or endophytes on their hosts, but sometimes can cause infections in humans [1,2]. Therefore, bacteriophages could be used as tools for prevention and therapy in both plants and humans or for food preservation [3,4]. Despite their promising potential, only a limited number of Pantoea-infecting bacteriophages with completely sequenced genomes, annotated as Pantoea, Erwinia or Serratia phages, have been published [5][6][7][8] or deposited in the public databases ( Supplementary Table S1) to date.…”