Most Common Foodborne Pathogens and Mycotoxins on Fresh Produce: A Review of Recent Outbreaks

Abstract

Every year millions of people are affected and thousands of them die due to infections and intoxication as a result of foodborne outbreaks, which also cause billions of dollars' worth of damage, public health problems, and agricultural product loss. A considerable portion of these outbreaks is related to fresh produce and caused by foodborne pathogens on fresh produce and mycotoxins. Escherichia coli O104:H4 outbreak, occurred in Germany in 2011, has attracted a great attention on foodborne outbreaks caused by contaminated fresh produce, and especially the vulnerability and gaps in the early warning and notification networks in the surveillance systems in all around the world. In the frame of this paper, we reviewed the most common foodborne pathogens on fresh produce, traceback investigations of the outbreaks caused by these pathogens, and lastly international early warning and notification systems, including PulseNet International and Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, aiming to detect foodborne outbreaks.

pMPES: A Modular Peptide Expression System for the Delivery of Antimicrobial Peptides to the Site of Gastrointestinal Infections Using Probiotics

“…MccL and MccV producers were also tested against foodborne pathogen E. coli O157:H7 (Figure 3c, top), and McnN producers were tested against foodborne pathogens Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis and Salmonella enterica serovar 4,[5],12:i:- (Figure 3c, bottom) [41,42]. …”

Assessing the relationship between organic farming practices and microbiological characteristics of organic lettuce varieties ( Lactuca sativa L.) grown in Sao Paulo, Brazil

“…Organic agriculture is considered more friendly to the environment than conventional agriculture, as management practices are designed to maintain, restore and enhance ecological harmony. Consumers believe that organic food are healthier and safer than conventional foods as synthetic fertilizers are avoided, in addition to the perceived benefits to the environment, animal's welfare, and workers safety (Winter and Davis ; Thogersen et al . ; Reganold and Wachter ; Asioli et al .…”

“…Several foodborne illness outbreaks caused by Salmonella spp. and pathogenic Escherichia coli were related to the consumption of contaminated fresh produce, including those from organic crops (Berger et al 2010;Jung et al 2014;Callej on et al 2015;Harvey et al 2016;Yeni et al 2016;Wadamori et al 2017). In the United States, a recent outbreak involving E. coli O157:H7 linked to romaine lettuce affected 210 people from 36 states: 96 were hospitalized and 27 developed haemolytic uremic syndrome.…”

Some Like It Hot: Heat Resistance of Escherichia coli in Food

“…Heat resistant E. coli have D 60 value of more than 6 min ( Figure 1 ; Liu et al, 2015; Mercer et al, 2015), and their resistance matches or exceeds Salmonella Senftenberg 755 with D 60 of 6.3 min (Ng et al, 1969; Baird-Parker et al, 1970) and Staphylococcus aureus with D 60 of 4.8-6.5 min (Jay et al, 2005; Kennedy et al, 2005; Doyle and Beuchat, 2013). Foodborne disease with E. coli has been linked to consumption of meat and meat products as well as fruits and fresh produce (Frenzen et al, 2005; Karch et al, 2005; Greig and Ravel, 2009; Yeni et al, 2015). Heat treatments for effective microbial decontamination and minimum organoleptic deterioration of foods (Woodward et al, 2002; Klaiber et al, 2005; Rajic et al, 2007) necessitate knowledge of the heat resistance of target foodborne pathogens as well as factors influencing heat resistance.…”