Detection of Pathogenic Yersinia Enterocolitica in Slaughtered Pigs by Cultural Methods and Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction

Healthy pigs carrying pathogenic to human strains are the main source of entry into slaughterhouse, where cross-contamination of carcasses can happen. The aim of this work was to determine prevalence in slaughtered pigs, investigating the presence of carriers in relation to carcass contamination. A...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Italian journal of food safety 2015-05, Vol.4 (2), p.4579-4579
Main Authors: Mazzette, Rina, Fois, Federica, Consolati, Simonetta Gianna, Salza, Sara, Tedde, Tiziana, Soro, Paolo, Collu, Carlo, Ladu, Daniela, Virgilio, Sebastiano, Piras, Francesca
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ail gene
Carcass
Real-time PCR
Slaughtered pig
Yersinia enterocolitica
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Summary:Healthy pigs carrying pathogenic to human strains are the main source of entry into slaughterhouse, where cross-contamination of carcasses can happen. The aim of this work was to determine prevalence in slaughtered pigs, investigating the presence of carriers in relation to carcass contamination. A total of 132 pig samples (tonsils, mesenteric lymph nodes, colon content, carcass surface) were collected from 4 Sardinian slaughterhouses. All the samples were examined by the ISO 10273:2003 method, and the prevalence was also determined by direct plating on CIN Agar. Moreover, to detect the positive strains in enrichment broths and isolates a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was applied. prevalence was 19% with direct plating and 12% with enrichment methods. Carcass surfaces and tonsils prevalence was 5.30% by direct plating, and 5.3% and 2.2%, respectively, by enrichment method. Tonsil samples showed an average contamination level of 3.2×103 CFU/g, while the mean value on carcass was 8.7×102 CFU/g. An overall prevalence of 9.8% of positive broths was detected by RT-PCR, that found a higher prevalence in tonsils (7.5%) with respect to cultural methods, confirming the greater sensitivity of this technique when applied for tonsils and faeces samples. The results show a relatively low pathogenic prevalence in pigs slaughtered in Sardinia. Good hygiene measures should be applied at slaughterhouse in order to prevent the entry of carriers and control carcass contamination.
ISSN:2239-7132
2239-7132
DOI:10.4081/ijfs.2015.4579