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Sources of psychrophilic and psychrotolerant clostridia causing spoilage of vacuum‐packed chilled meats, as determined by PCR amplification procedure
Author(s) -
Broda D.M.,
Boerema J.A.,
Brightwell G.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of applied microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.889
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1365-2672
pISSN - 1364-5072
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2672.2009.04193.x
Subject(s) - psychrophile , clostridia , food spoilage , biology , food science , microbiology and biotechnology , vacuum packing , bacteria , genetics
Aims: To determine possible preslaughter and processing sources of psychrophilic and psychrotolerant clostridia causing spoilage of vacuum‐packed chilled meats. Methods and Results: Molecular methods based on the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of specific 16S rDNA fragments were used to detect the presence of Clostridium gasigenes , Clostridium estertheticum , Clostridium algidicarnis and Clostridium putrefaciens in a total of 357 samples collected from ten slaughter stock supply farms, slaughter stock, two lamb‐processing plants, their environments, dressed carcasses and final vacuum‐packed meat stored at –0·5°C for 5½ weeks. Clostridium gasigenes , C. estertheticum and C. algidicarnis / C. putrefaciens were commonly detected in farm, faeces, fleece and processing environmental samples collected at the slaughter floor operations prior to fleece removal, but all these micro‐organisms were detected in only 4 out of 26 cooling floor and chiller environmental samples. One out of 42 boning room environmental samples tested positive for the presence of C. gasigenes and C. estertheticum , but 25 out of 42 of these samples were positive for C. algidicarnis / C. putrefaciens . Nearly all of the 31 faecal samples tested positive for the presence of C. gasigenes and C. estertheticum ; however, only two of these samples were positive for C. algidicarnis and/or C. putrefaciens . Clostridial species that were subject to this investigation were frequently detected on chilled dressed carcasses. Conclusions: The major qualitative and quantitative differences between the results of PCR detection obtained with the primers specific for ‘blown pack’ ‐causing clostridia ( C. gasigenes and C. estertheticum ) and those obtained with primers specific for C. algidicarnis and C . putrefaciens suggest that the control of meat spoilage caused by different groups of meat clostridia is best approached individually for each group. Significance and Impact of the Study: This paper provides information significant for controlling meat spoilage‐causing clostridia in the meat‐processing plants.