Salmonella is one of the leading causes of food-borne illnesses worldwide, and one of the main contributors to salmonellosis is the consumption of contaminated egg, poultry, pork, beef, and milk products. Since deleterious effects of Salmonella on public health and the economy continue to occur, improving safety of food products by early detection of food-borne pathogens would be considered an important component for limiting exposure to Salmonella contamination. Therefore, there is an ongoing need to develop more advanced detection methods that can identify Salmonella accurately and rapidly in foods before they reach consumers. In the past three decades, there have been increasing efforts toward developing and improving rapid pathogen detection and characterization methodologies for application to food products. In this chapter, we discuss molecular methods for detection, identification, and genetic characterization of Salmonella in food. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of the established and emerging rapid detection methods are addressed here. The methods with potential application to the industry are highlighted in this chapter.
Part of the book: Current Topics in Salmonella and Salmonellosis
Foodborne diseases, caused by pathogenic bacteria, have become an important social issue in the field of food safety. It presents a widespread and growing threat to human health in both developed and developing countries. As such, techniques for the detection of foodborne pathogens and waterborne pathogens are urgently needed to prevent the occurrence of human foodborne infections. Although traditional culture-based bacterial isolation and identification are the “gold standard” methods with high preciseness, their drawbacks in time-consuming are inadequate for rapid detection of pathogen to reduce foodborne disease occurrence. Fortunately, with the development of biotechnologies and nanotechnologies, various kinds of new technologies for rapid detection of pathogens have been developed so far, such as nucleic acid-based methods, antibody-based methods, and aptamer-based assays. In this chapter, we summarized the principles and the application of some recent rapid detection technologies for pathogenic bacteria. Moreover, the advantages and disadvantages of the established and emerging rapid detection methods are addressed here.
Part of the book: Biosensing Technologies for the Detection of Pathogens