Identification of Malicious Food-borne Pathogens from Fingerprint Samples using iDPlus Performance

Introduction

In 2010, World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed that there were almost 582 million food-borne related disease cases which led to about 351 thousand associated deaths worldwide. As food-borne bacteria species are typically transmitted via ingestion of contaminated food, inappropriate handling procedures can threaten the safety of food consumption. Food-borne intoxication can be exceptionally life-threatening, especially for the immunocompromised. In order to reduce the transmission of infectious pathogens, proper hygienic behaviours such as hand washing with water and soap is necessary before handling food materials. In this experiment, Shimadzu iD^Plus , a MALDI-TOF based system, was used to demonstrate the importance of handwashing hygiene through identification of micro-organisms, including various food-borne pathogens, before and after handwashing practices. The approach was based on submitting fingerprint mass peak list from MALDI-TOF mass spectrum to match against SARAMIS database for identification.

December 22, 2015 GMT