Molecular detection ofserotype groups of Listeria monocytogenes isolated from gallbladder of cattle and sheep in Iraq

Current State of Salmonella, Campylobacter and Listeria in the Food Chain across the Arab Countries: A Descriptive Review

Foodborne infections caused by bacterial pathogens are a common cause of human illness in the Middle East, with a substantial burden of economic loss and public health consequences. This review aims at elucidating recent literature on the prevalence of Non-Typhoidal Salmonella (NTS), Campylobacter and Listeria monocytogens in the food chain in the Arab countries, and to consolidate available evidence on the public health burden and the status of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among the concerned three pathogens. The reviewed evidence points to a scarcity of understanding of the magnitude of NTS in the food chain in the Arab countries. Additionally, not much work has been done at the molecular characterization level to address the source-attribution of NTS in the Arab World. Very few surveys have been done on Campylobacter in the food chain in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. There is a gap in quantitative (counts/numbers) surveillance efforts for Campylobacter in the chicken meat supply across all Arab countries, despite the availability of some qualitative (presence/absence) surveillance data. While there are several reports on L. monocytogenes in animal-sourced foods, notably in North African Arab countries, fewer are published on L. monocytogenes in plant-sourced foods. Information on the L. monocytogenes serotypes and strain diversity circulating in the Arab region is widely lacking. Antibiotic resistance in the three pathogens is not fully understood across the Arab region, despite some reports indicating varying trends at the human-food interface. The literature evidence presented in this review stresses that Salmonella, Campylobacter and L. monocytogenes continue to challenge food safety and public health in the Arab countries.

PCR-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism and Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis Characterization of Listeria monocytogenes Isolates from Ready-to-Eat Foods, the Food Processing Environment, and Clinical Samples in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Listeria monocytogenes is a ubiquitous, intracellular foodborne pathogen that is responsible for invasive listeriosis. The ability of L. monocytogenes to cause disease has some correlation with the serotypes of a specific lineage group, making the identification of lineage groups important for epidemiological analysis. The development of typing methods to link the strains of L. monocytogenes to an outbreak of listeriosis would help minimize the spread of the disease. The aim of this study was to design a PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method to differentiate between the lineage groups of L. monocytogenes. PCR-amplified fragments of the hly gene for 12 serotypes of L. monocytogenes were sequenced, aligned, and analyzed with the BioEdit program, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within regions of this gene were identified. Because of the difficulty in acquiring a serotype 4ab reference strain, this serotype was not included in this study. We tested the specificity and accuracy of the PCR-RFLP method on these L. monocytogenes reference strains and validated the method with 172 L. monocytogenes strains recovered from humans, food, and the food processing environment in 2000 to 2002 and 2008 to 2010 from regions within South Africa. PCR-RFLP analysis applied in this study placed L. monocytogenes serotypes into one of three lineage groups based on the sequence differences and SNPs within each lineage group. The SNPs were conserved in a region where RFLP analysis could be applied for a distinction between L. monocytogenes lineage groups.

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