MAPPING THE MICROBIAL CONTAMINATION IN FOOD AND FOOD PROCESSING ENVIRONMENT

The quality and food safety has always been an object of study for microbiology. For this reason, research is focused on both microorganisms of technological interest responsible for metabolic processes, such as fermentation, and important to define the sensory characteristics of the finished product, and food-spoilers microorganisms, that are responsible for the food spoilage. The microorganisms that inhabit the food processing environments play also an important role, since cross-contamination phenomena can occur during the processing phases. Monitoring the presence of spoilage microorganisms in food-processing environment, can be very usefull in order to prevent the spread along the processing chain and consequently the transition to the finished product, preserving the food quality and safety. The methodological approach to study the microbiota has changed and microbial species and strains can be identified and monitored with higher levels of speed, reliability and sensitivity The aim of the present work was the study of the microbiota of different dairy manufactures, fresh meat and surface samples from the related processing environments by using the new culture-independent method based on high-performance sequencing (high-throughput sequencing, HTS). Different ecosystems were studied, in order to investigate the microbiota composition and the specific role of the microorganisms in each food matrix and the possible overlap with the microbiota on utilized tools, equipment and processing surfaces. Several kind of dairy manufactures and meat, as well as environmental samples from surfaces and associated processing tools were taken into account. Moreover, a novel approach for of the identification of oligotypes present in foods and environments was used, focusing on the Pseudomonas genus. Oligotyping is a computational method that allows to explain the ecologically significant differences between closely related organisms, going over the species identification. Thanks to the different HTS approaches it was ...