Role of Water Hardness in Rinsing Bacteria from the Skin of Processed Broiler Chickens

Advances in enteropathogen control throughout the meat chicken production chain

Enteropathogens, namely Salmonella and Campylobacter, are a concern in global public health and have been attributed in numerous risk assessments to a poultry source. During the last decade, a large body of research addressing this problem has been published. The literature reviewed contains review articles on certain aspects of poultry production chain; however, in the past decade there has not been a review on the entire chain-farm to fork-of poultry production. For this review, a pool of 514 articles were selected for relevance via a systematic screening process (from >7500 original search articles). These studies identified a diversity of management and intervention strategies for the elimination or reduction of enteropathogens in poultry production. Many studies were laboratory or limited field trials with implementation in true commercial operations being problematic. Entities considering using commercial antienteropathogen products and interventions are advised to perform an internal validation and fit-for-purpose trial as Salmonella and Campylobacter serovars and biovars may have regional diversity. Future research should focus on nonchemical application within the processing plant and how a combination of synergisticinterventions through the production chain may contribute to reducing the overall carcass burden of enteropathogens, coupled with increased consumer education on safe handling and cooking of poultry.

Adhesion of smooth and rough phenotypes of Flavobacterium psychrophilum to polystyrene surfaces

Phenotypic smooth cells of the fish pathogenic bacterium Flavobacterium psychrophilum have previously been reported to be more adhesive to polystyrene surfaces than corresponding rough cells. In this study, the adhesion ability of smooth and rough cells of F. psychrophilum to polystyrene surfaces was investigated in detail with a crystal violet staining method. By treating both polystyrene surfaces with fish mucus and carbohydrates and the bacterial cells with carbohydrates, the involvement of lectins in the adhesion process was investigated. Smooth cells showed significantly higher adhesion ability to untreated polystyrene surfaces compared with corresponding rough cells and increasing water hardness had an inhibitory effect on the adhesion. Treatment of polystyrene surfaces with D-glucose, D-galactose and fish mucus increased the adhesion ability of smooth cells to polystyrene. Furthermore, treatment of the smooth cells with D-glucose, D-galactose and sialic acid decreased the adhesion ability of the cells, indicating that the adhesion is likely mediated by complementary lectins on the surface of the cells. Sodium (meta)periodate treatment of smooth cells also decreased the adhesion ability to polystyrene, suggesting that the lectins, such as the dominating sialic acid-binding lectin, are probably localized in the extracellular polysaccharides surrounding the cells.