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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » National Animal Disease Center » Food Safety and Enteric Pathogens Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #106747
Title: PULSED-FIELD ELECTROPHORESIS MOLECULAR FINGERPRINTING CAPABILITIES FOR DETECTION AND CONFIRMATION OF OUTBREAK STRAINS OF LISTERIA MONOCYTOGENES, CAMPYLOBACTER JEJUNI, SALMONELLA, AND ENTEROHEMORRHAGIC ESCHERICHIA COLI

Author
item WINTERS, D - IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
item SLAVIK, M - IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
item CAVE, M - UAMS, LITTLE ROCK, AR
item Wesley, Irene
item JOHNSON, M - UNIV OF ARKANSAS

Submitted to: Food Safety Consortium Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/17/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: It is of critical importance to the protection of public health to have the ability to determine whether a bacterium with a specific molecular fingerprint isolated from patients suffering from a foodborne illness is identical to bacteria isolated from a suspected food source. This information is critical to aid health professionals in advising consumers about what particular food products to avoid buying during an outbreak. Such information also aids food processors in determining which particular lots of their manufactured food products need or do not need to be recalled. It is extremely valuable for industrial food processors to be able to prove unequivocally that their possibly incriminated food is or is not the source of a particular outbreak strain of a pathogen isolated from patients suffering from foodborne illnesses. Presently, the most rigorous test is to show that a fully processed, ready-to-eat food does or does not contain any viable cells of the bacterial pathogen(s) in question. More importantly, however, a food processor needs to be able to show if a particular pathogen present in the suspect food production lots has the same molecular fingerprint as the pathogen isolated from ill patients.