Abstract

The increasing concern for food safety has created a need to evaluate novel techniques to eliminate or control pathogens, resulting in safe food. In this study, four bacteriophages of bovine origin, specific to E. coli O157:H7, were successfully isolated and characterized. A microplate reader assay demonstrated the efficacy of the bacteriophage (phage) cocktail against E. coli O157:H7 resulting in a significant reduction (p < 0.01) in the target pathogen population. The phage cocktail demonstrated significant efficacy (p < 0.05) against E. coli O157:H7 in the presence of the most utilized sanitizers in the United States, namely 100 parts per million (ppm) free chlorine and 100-ppm peroxyacetic acid. Survival in the sanitizer concentrations demonstrates the potential use of phage cocktail and sanitizer synergistically to enhance sanitation operations in the food industry.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-29-2020

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Microorganisms, v. 8, issue 9, 1316.

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8091316

Funding Information

This work was supported by the Food Safety Outreach Competitive Grants Program, Grant No. 2017-70020-27246 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

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