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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania » Eastern Regional Research Center » Food Safety and Intervention Technologies Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #367817
Research Project: The Role of Genotype in the Development and Validation of Growth Models and Intervention Technologies for Pathogenic Non-Shiga Toxigenic Escherichia coli Found in Foods

Location: Food Safety and Intervention Technologies Research

Title: The influence of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance on the inactivation of extraintestinal pathogenic E.coli suspended in ground chicken meat by high pressure processing

Author
item XU, AIXIA - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item Scullen, Butch - Butch
item Sheen, Shiowshuh - Allen
item Sommers, Christopher

Submitted to: Food Control
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/15/2020
Publication Date: 5/20/2020
Citation: Xu, A., Scullen, O.J., Sheen, S., Sommers, C.H. 2020. The influence of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance on the inactivation of extraintestinal pathogenic E.coli suspended in ground chicken meat by high pressure processing. Food Control. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2019.107070.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2019.107070

Interpretive Summary: Extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) are common contaminants in poultry meat and are associated with diverse human infections including meningitis and urinary tract infections. These conditions affect over 11 million people each year in the United States, primarily women, at an economic cost > $20 billion. High pressure processing (HPP) is a commercialized process which is used to crush bacteria in foods. In this study we found that a mild HPP treatment of 400 MPa for 10 min could kill 90% of ExPEC in ground chicken meat. Furthermore, we found that some genes, those that are responsible for making people sick, could affect the resistance of some ExPEC to HPP. This research will help women protect themselves from food associated ExPEC which can cause urinary tract infections and inflammatory bowel disease.

Technical Abstract: Extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) are responsible for urinary tract infections, inflammatory bowel disease, sepsis and meningitis. Retail poultry meat has been identified as the main reservoir for ExPEC in food. Information regarding ExPEC virulence factor (VF) or antibiotic resistance (AR) involvement with resistance to high-pressure inactivation in food is lacking. In this study we inoculated ground chicken meat with 22 individual isolates of clinical uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) and newborn meningitis causing E. coli (NMEC), and isolates from retail chicken meat or chicken skin. We then determined their high-pressure inactivation kinetics (D10-value). The mean D10-value for all isolates (n'='22) was 3.26 minutes at 400MPa. The D10 varied widely between the 22 isolates, with a range of the range of D10-value for ExPEC was 0.17 to 9.65 minutes. The mean D10-value for the clinical isolates was 3.33 vs. 3.15 for the non-clinical isolates. ExPEC lacking chuA, cnf1, sinH, papG, hlyA, vat, yncD were more resistant to HPP, indicating ExPEC VF could play a role in high pressure resistance. ExPEC possessing ompT were more sensitive to HPP. There was no correlation between antibiotic resistance and resistance to HPP. ExPEC HPP resistance was consistent with the historical literature for that of shiga toxin-producing E. coli.