Establishment of a test culture to study the effects of ionizing radiation on the opportunistic and pathogenic microflora of food

Due to the special importance of food in the emergence of acute intestinal infectious diseases and bacterial food poisoning, special attention is paid to the microbiological purity monitoring of food raw materials and food products. Ionizing radiation processing of food – is a promising technology for combating both microorganisms causing spoilage and pathogenic and opportunistic microorganisms – pathogens of dangerous diseases. However, work with vegetative forms of these microorganisms to study the effects of ionizing radiation is difficult because of the need to use in experiments only actively growing culture, which is sensitive to various environmental factors. When studying the effect of ionizing radiation on the microflora of food products, this study describes the investigation of the possibility of using as a test-culture the ascospores of the fungus Aspergillus fischeri instead of vegetative forms of pathogenic and opportunistic cultures. Ascospores of the fungus Aspergillus fischeri are used as a test culture in the development of pasteurization regimes of fruit and vegetable products. A. fischeri ascospores have been shown to have higher resistance to ionizing radiation in the range from 1 to 5 kGy at capacity 10 MeV in comparison with Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes cells. Therefore, in the development of ionizing radiation food processing regimes it is recommended to use ascospores of the fungus A. fischeri as a test culture instead of vegetative forms of bacteria.