How to supply safe food by adding virus to food

BySheri chen

Food poisoning does not happen with something special, but it can happen even if everyday meals ingest foods and drinks containing harmful microorganisms. In order to prevent this, it is only necessary to manufacture a safe food which does not contain harmful microorganisms, but this is far more difficult than consumers think, and now it is difficult to destroy microorganisms, There is a case that a method using "virus" is taken.

For Safer Food, Just Add Viruses - NOVA Next | PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/phages-for-food-safety/

◆ Bacteria and sausages
In March 2012 the inspector of the US Department of Agriculture is a dangerous bacteria beef sausage made by a small meat processor in Elgin, TexasListeria monocytogenesAnd that it was included. If you ingest this bacterium your physical condition will be bad or you may die in the worst case. As a result, the meat processor of the manufacturer decided to recall more than 1 ton of sausages.

Such recalls do catastrophic damage to the reputation of the company, so Listeria monocytogenes have become a big trouble of food manufacturers. Smoked factoryNorth Country SmokehouseMike Satzow who runs a manager is one of the people who bothered with this problem.


Mr. Satzow's factory uses special varieties of pig meat, with black maple syrupslurryMake a marinade with spices and smoke it with apple trees. "When we have a small company like we do, we will just want to make the best things that we can make," Satzow says. Mr. Satzow's factory cooks sausages at a temperature sufficient to extinguish Listeria monocytogenes. However, it is said that "Listeria bacteria are inevitably mixed in the product between heat treatment step and packaging step" .


Mr. Satzow devised measures to prevent listeria bacteria from entering for several years and has adopted various antibacterial products and manufacturing processes. And in 2011, heBacteriophageIt contains billions of virus particles calledListexIt will be used to spray. Listex destroys bacteria, but it is harmless to human and animal cells. Currently at Satzow's smoked factory, smoke processing is over and this spray is ejected on the belt conveyor on the way toward packaging so that listeria bacteria are not mixed into the sausage.

This Listex spray contains billions of bacteriophages, which capture bacteria and inject genetic material. About this mechanism is in IrelandTeagasc Food Research CenterOlivia McAuliffe, senior researcher at Olivia McAuliffe explains, "Bacteriophage grows by directing the cell wall" open from the inside "direct to the cells of the bacteria, and the bacteria will rupture with the bacteriophage which has been over-increased .


About one century ago bacteriophage has been used for treatment related to bacterial infections, but the food industry responds to new innovations slowly, so there is an idea against the use of it for the past several decades I did it. However, now it is becoming possible to gain support of bacteria phage from the food industry, and indeed Dutch companies that actually develop and sell ListexMicreos Food SafetyIt is a tremendous momentum that growth rate of.

◆ Bacterial Phage
The possibility of the existence of bacteriophage which became attracting attention in the food industry emerged around the end of the 1800's. But in fact it was discovered in 1915 that dysentery occurred inside the French army located in the suburbs of Paris. It is in Paris, FrancePasteur InstituteThe microbiologist Mr. Felix Derel went to investigate dysentery and discovered that the bacteria were destroyed when culturing the bacteria obtained from the soldier's seat on a plate. Mr. Derrell described in his paper published in 1917, "I found out the disappearance of Shigella at the same time and the presence of an invisible microorganism (bacterial phage) with characteristics that resist the pathogen" It is.

Until the 1930s, researchers in the Soviet Union repeated experiments to prove "Bacteriophage is an effective treatment for all kinds of infectious diseases". During the Second World War, Soviet physicians used bacteriophage to treat bruised people, American scientists were also experimenting with chemotherapy using bacteriophage. However, at this time, it is not understood at all how bacteriophage acts on bacteria, it seems that it was an absurd existence such as a virus which sometimes healed sometimes and it is not so. The treatment with bacteriophage due to the emergence of penicillin and other antibiotics will be abolished, but since bacteriophage was inexpensive than antibiotics, research in this was continued in the Soviet Union .


And this bacterial phage was newly advanced into the field of food safety. Those who are approved as food ingredients or additives can pass the certification much more easily than approved as a medicine to be ingested by humans, and those concerned with food production such as farmers and large farmers Everyone was seeking new innovation to reduce the risk of food pollution and it seems that it was established as a medicine to be used for food to destroy bacteria.

Intralytix"ListShield" which destroys Listeria bacteria, "EcoShield" which suppresses O157 and H7, "SalmoFresh" which destroys dangerous pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella, and so onAmerican Food and Drug AdministrationIt is safe to be approved by.