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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Environmental Microbial & Food Safety Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #406398
Research Project: Improving Pre-harvest Produce Safety through Reduction of Pathogen Levels in Agricultural Environments and Development and Validation of Farm-Scale Microbial Quality Model for Irrigation Water Sources

Location: Environmental Microbial & Food Safety Laboratory

Title: Phage biocontrol for reducing bacterial foodborne pathogens in produce and other foods

Author
item VIKRAM, AMIT - Intralytix, Inc
item CALLAHAN, MARY THERESA - Intralytix, Inc
item WOOLSTON, JOELLE - Intralytix, Inc
item Sharma, Manan
item SULAKVELIDZE, ALEXANDER - Intralytix, Inc

Submitted to: Current Opinion in Biotechnology
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/1/2022
Publication Date: 9/23/2022
Citation: Vikram, A., Callahan, M.L., Woolston, J.W., Sharma, M., Sulakvelidze, A. 2022. Phage biocontrol for reducing bacterial foodborne pathogens in produce and other foods. Current Opinion in Biotechnology. 78. Article 102805. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2022.102805.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2022.102805

Interpretive Summary: Foodborne pathogens account for over 47 million cases of foodborne illness each in year in the U.S. Lytic bacteriophages can be an effective biological control of foodborne pathogens in number of different commodities. Bacteriophages are viruses specific for bacterial, which allows them to specifically target foodborne pathogens in foods while not reducing levels of other potentially beneficial bacteria in foods. There is an increased interest in the use of lytic bacteriophages in the food industry in a number of different sectors. The literature summarized here in this review benefits food safety stakeholders by providing a summary of the benefits and challenges of using lytic bacteriophages to reduce the burden of foodborne illness in the U.S.

Technical Abstract: Foodborne pathogen contamination causes approximately 47 million cases of foodborne illness in the U.S. and renders thousands of pounds of food products inedible, aggravating the already dire situation of food loss. Reducing foodborne contamination not only improves the overall global public health but also reduces food waste and loss. Phage biocontrol or phage-mediated reduction of bacterial foodborne pathogens in various foods has been gaining interest recently as an effective and environmentally friendly food safety approach. Consequently, several commercial phage-based food safety products have been developed and are increasingly implemented by the food industry in the United States. This review focuses on the use of phage biocontrol in mitigating bacterial pathogen contamination in various food products with a special emphasis on applications to fresh produce.