Scientists looking for traces of E. coli O157:H7 contamination in foods soon could have a new detection method on their hands - turning off the lights to see if the bacteria glow in the dark.
Purdue University researchers have engineered a bacteriophage called NanoLuc - a virus that only infects bacteria - to produce an enzyme that causes E. coli O157:H7 to emit light if infected. The process can shave hours off traditional testing methods, which can be critical when stopping the distribution of tainted foods.
"It's really practical. They (testing labs) don't have to modify anything they're doing. They just have to add the phage during the enrichment step of the testing protocol," said Bruce Applegate, a Purdue associate professor of food science. "We could detect as few as four bacteria in eight hours, and the process is cheaper than tests being used today."
The study involved Purdue faculty, graduate students and scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service and the Purdue Center for Food Safety Engineering. Results were published in Scientific Reports, an arm of the Nature Publishing Group, and are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep33235.
While many strains of E. coli bacteria are harmless, some can cause severe and potentially fatal illnesses. Ingesting as few as 10 colony-forming units of E. coli O157:H7 can result in serious illness.
Current detection methods cannot find just a few E. coli O157:H7 cells in a sample, so inspectors do an enrichment process, culturing the bacteria to multiply so they can be detected. With the bacteriophage added to the sample, scientists can add a reagent and detect E. coli O157:H7 before the enrichment process is even finished, within seven to nine hours.
"The current detection methods cannot bypass the enrichment process, but our technology can explore the enrichment phase. That can give us a time advantage over other methods," said Dandan Zhang, a graduate research assistant in the Purdue Department of Food Science and the paper's first author.
The process is also unlikely to create a false positive because the bacteriophage cannot produce the light-emitting protein without encountering E. coli O157:H7, which is the only bacteria NanoLuc is able to infect.
"The phage is just a virus. It cannot carry out metabolism until it infects a bacteria, which in this case is E. coli O157:H7," Applegate said. "They won't create these proteins unless they've found their specific host."
Based on the number of bacteriophage added, the amount of time that has passed and the amount of light emitted, the authors can use an equation to determine approximately how much E. coli O157:H7 is present. Their tests were done in an enrichment broth made with ground beef.
Zhang said future work would focus on detection of E. coli O157:H7 in lettuce, spinach and other produce. Other bacteriophages could also be developed to detect other pathogenic bacteria, such as Salmonella, in a similar fashion.
Funding and support for the study came from the USDA, the Purdue Research Foundation Fellowship and the National Council for Science and Technology of Mexico.
Source: Purdue University





Announcements
Job Offers
- Export Sales Manager Europe Division
- Directors - New Zealand
- Nursery Production Manager Victoria Australia
- Technical Sales Consultant, Washington
- Export Sales Manager North America Exports
- Head Grower Hydroponic Greenhouse
- Account Manager – South-East Asia
- Vegetable Seed - EU Sales and Regional Manager
- Business Developer – High Tech Horticulture
- Operations Manager Organic Farm Barka Oman
"Tweeting Growers"
Top 5 -yesterday
- Coating with a helicopter
- Consuming environmentally sustainable food one beer at a time
- Vapor Pressure Deficit calculator app for indoor cultivation and greenhouses
- Fury at polyhouses installed without planning permission near Stafford
- US: Hydroponic farm signs partnership to deliver fresh lettuce year-round
Top 5 -last week
Top 5 -last month
- "Honduras greenhouse park to become the largest producer-exporter in the Central American region"
- Netherlands: Codema Systems Group declared bankrupt
- Shanghai: Young people who can't get vegetables start to "help themselves" through hydroponic vegetables
- Canada: Dutch holding company acquires Ontario Plants Propagation
- Google meets agriculture at Go Green Agriculture
Receive the daily newsletter in your email for free | Click here
Other news in this sector:
- 2022-05-20 The banks collapsed in 2008 – and our food system is about to do the same
- 2022-05-17 US Sprouting industry recommend to improve safety practices to limit foodborne outbreaks
- 2022-05-10 Maryland startup helps consumers ‘romaine’ calm about food safety
- 2022-04-28 “Eat them to defeat them” campaign has resulted in UK veg sales worth £92 million
- 2022-04-25 ‘Color is essential when selling healthy snacks in vending machines’
- 2022-04-21 "Shoppers keep food safety in mind when sourcing CEA produce"
- 2022-04-21 US (CA): Organic zucchini voluntarily recalled because of possible Salmonella contamination
- 2022-04-12 "China needs own seeds to guarantee country's food bowl"
- 2022-03-24 CAN: New North Greenhouse teams up with Harvest Algoma
- 2022-03-18 Honey bee colony collapse could mean food insecurity
- 2022-03-15 Save Foods latest trial boosts the shelf life of strawberries
- 2022-03-15 Consumer Foundation raises questions over strawberries sold in Taiwan
- 2022-03-04 Pandemic created an opportunity for organic school meals in California
- 2022-02-08 "Better than you remember" campaign should increase vegetable consumption
- 2022-01-27 AgTech in Abu Dhabi: Driving a new way forward for food security
- 2022-01-10 Calling an ambulance for moldy tomatoes: please don't
- 2021-12-24 US: APHIS seeks comments on draft Pest Risk Assessment for the importation of berry plants from Mexico
- 2021-12-07 Nutrition for growth: the NIGI project in Uganda
- 2021-12-02 Australia and New Zealand release fact sheet on food defence for fresh produce industry
- 2021-12-01 US: Widespread cadmium contamination in open field spinach