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Applied Sciences
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Recent Advances in Microbial and Chemical Contaminants Assessment in Food
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Recent Advances in Microbial and Chemical Contaminants Assessment in Food

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Science and Technology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 May 2022) | Viewed by 9912

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Rossana Roila

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Perugia, Via San Costanzo 4, 06126 Perugia, Italy
Interests: food safety; food quality; food contaminats; food spoilage bacteria; foodborne pathogens; exposure assessment; dietary exposure; dairy products; meat products; seafood products
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Raffaella Branciari

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Perugia, Via San Costanzo 4, 06126 Perugia, Italy
Interests: food safety; food quality; food and feed contaminants; aflatoxins; fish products; dietary exposure; dairy products; heavy metals; acrylamide; by-products; sustainable food production
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. David Ranucci

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Perugia, Via San Costanzo 4, 06126 Perugia, Italy
Interests: meat and meat product quality; meat and meat product safety; antioxidant; game meat; meat hygiene
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the rapidly evolving context of food production and consumption, food safety represents a crucial public health challenge, and food contamination represents a very current global issue, as contaminated foodstuff not only poses a threat to consumer health, but it also has relevant negative economic implications. Protecting consumers from the potential harmful effects of contaminated food is a shared responsibility and represents an urgent and demanding task for national and international regulators, for the scientific community, and for all the actors involved in the food chain, from production to consumption. Ensuring the safety of food products requires effective and suitable monitoring programs as well as thorough risk assessment studies, considering all the food-processing phases and as many combinations between different contaminants, food products, and consumer groups as possible. Despite the growing expectation of nutritional benefits from the consumption of healthy and high-quality products, the topics related to food safety and food contamination are increasingly catching consumers’ attention, in particular, chemical and microbiological hazards in food are perceived as extremely hazardous and have been high on the lists of consumer concerns.

This Special Issue is open to any contributions investigating microbial and chemical food contamination patterns assessing consumer risk associated with dietary exposure.

Dr. Rossana Roila
Dr. Raffaella Branciari
Prof. Dr. David Ranucci
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • food safety
  • hazard characterization
  • risk assessment
  • food control
  • product shelf-life
  • dietary exposure
  • pesticides
  • food microbial contamination
  • foodborne pathogens
  • mycotoxins

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 4871 KiB  
Communication
Antimicrobial Efficacy of Edible Mushroom Extracts: Assessment of Fungal Resistance
by Jong H. Kim, Christina C. Tam, Kathleen L. Chan, Noreen Mahoney, Luisa W. Cheng, Mendel Friedman and Kirkwood M. Land
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(9), 4591; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12094591 - 30 Apr 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3633
Abstract
Antimicrobial efficacy of the water or methanolic extracts of three medicinal mushrooms Taiwanofungus camphoratus, Agaricus blazei Murrill, and Ganoderma lucidum (Curtis) P. Karst were investigated against yeast and filamentous fungal pathogens as well as against commensal and pathogenic bacteria. The methanolic extract [...] Read more.
Antimicrobial efficacy of the water or methanolic extracts of three medicinal mushrooms Taiwanofungus camphoratus, Agaricus blazei Murrill, and Ganoderma lucidum (Curtis) P. Karst were investigated against yeast and filamentous fungal pathogens as well as against commensal and pathogenic bacteria. The methanolic extract of T. camphoratus (TcM) exhibited both potent antifungal and antibacterial activity, while the water extract of T. camphoratus (TcW) showed limited antibacterial activity against Listeria monocytogenes. Neither the methanolic nor water extracts of A. blazei and G. lucidum exhibited antimicrobial activity. In the risk assessment testing monitoring the development of fungal tolerance to mushroom extracts in food matrices, two P. expansum mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) mutants exhibited a tolerance to TcM. In a proof-of-concept bioassay using the natural benzoic salicylaldehyde (SA), P. expansum and A. fumigatus MAPK antioxidant mutants showed similar tolerance to SA, suggesting that natural ingredients in TcM such as benzoic derivatives could negatively affect the efficacy of TcM when antioxidant mutants are targeted. Conclusion: TcM could be developed as a food ingredient having antimicrobial potential. The antimicrobial activity of TcM operates via the intact MAPK antioxidant signaling system in microbes, however, mutants lacking genes in the MAPK system escape the toxicity triggered by TcM. Therefore, caution should be exercised in the use of TcM so as to not adversely affect food safety and quality by triggering the resistance of antioxidant mutants in contaminated food. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Microbial and Chemical Contaminants Assessment in Food)
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10 pages, 3750 KiB  
Article
Microbial Risk Assessment of Industrial Ice Cream Marketed in Italy
by Luca Nalbone, Lisa Vallone, Filippo Giarratana, Gianluca Virgone, Filippa Lamberta, Stefania Maria Marotta, Giorgio Donato, Alessandro Giuffrida and Graziella Ziino
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(4), 1988; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12041988 - 14 Feb 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3351
Abstract
Ice cream is a frozen dairy dessert consumed worldwide. The frozen state may give a positive impression regarding microbiological safety; however, transmission of foodborne pathogens can also occur through ice cream consumption. A total of 200 samples of milk-based industrial ice cream, with [...] Read more.
Ice cream is a frozen dairy dessert consumed worldwide. The frozen state may give a positive impression regarding microbiological safety; however, transmission of foodborne pathogens can also occur through ice cream consumption. A total of 200 samples of milk-based industrial ice cream, with and without inclusions, were purchased at different mass-market retailers in Italy and analyzed for the detection and enumeration of the aerobic colonies, Enterobacteriaceae, coagulase-positive staphylococci, Salmonella spp. and Listeria monocytogenes. Results were classified according to different ranges of acceptability, whose limits were set for each microbiological parameter. Unsatisfactory loads were obtained for two and nine samples as regarded the aerobic colonies and Enterobacteriaceae, respectively. L. monocytogenes was detected in 16 samples, and in three of them, the loads exceeded the legal limit of acceptability (≤100 cfu/g) during marketing. No unsatisfactory loads were obtained for coagulase-positive staphylococci and no Salmonella spp. was detected. The results obtained allow speculation that inclusions may be a relevant source of contamination for industrial ice cream. However, inadequate manufacturing and hygiene practices also threaten the safety of the finished product. Ice cream is a complex food matrix, and a comprehensive approach to the whole production system is required to ensure high standards of quality and safety. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Microbial and Chemical Contaminants Assessment in Food)
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10 pages, 525 KiB  
Article
Salmonella spp. in Pigs Slaughtered in Small and Medium-Sized Abattoirs in Central Italy: Preliminary Results on Occurrence and Control Strategies
by Sara Primavilla, Rossana Roila, Alessia Zicavo, Roberta Ortenzi, Raffaella Branciari, Tana Shtylla Kika, Andrea Valiani and David Ranucci
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(16), 7600; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11167600 - 19 Aug 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2120
Abstract
Salmonella in pork is still a relevant safety issue in the EU, and specific regulations are in force to control this hazard in the meat chain, in a from farm to fork perspective. In Italy, the control is mainly based on official sampling [...] Read more.
Salmonella in pork is still a relevant safety issue in the EU, and specific regulations are in force to control this hazard in the meat chain, in a from farm to fork perspective. In Italy, the control is mainly based on official sampling at the slaughterhouse level. The prevalence of Salmonella, and isolated serovars, was investigated during a three-year survey in small and medium slaughterhouses in central Italy. A total of 400 pig carcasses samples were collected by official authorities during the observation period. Data were also analyzed according to the year and season of sampling. The overall Salmonella prevalence in the five selected abattoirs was 13%, with no differences due to the slaughterhouses size and seasons of sampling. An increasing trend in Salmonella prevalence was registered over the years. The main serovars detected were Salmonella enterica 4,[5],12:i:- and Derby. The data emphasized that the number of contaminated carcasses is relatively high with respect to the level set by EU legislation, and equally distributed in the area, and therefore, appropriate monitoring and control strategies also need to be developed at the farm level. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Microbial and Chemical Contaminants Assessment in Food)
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