| Summary: |
Fresh and ready-to-eat (RTE) foods are becoming increasingly popular in Europe. Food, particularly RTE, is susceptible to foodborne pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes (LM). The LM is the cause of listeriosis, a disease with increasingly health and economica lissues in Europe. Food manufacturers must comply with strict EU regulations of LM in food, whereas the US adopted a zero-listeria policy.
This poses also great economical and environmental challenges, due to large food waste and short expiration dates. Various ways for mild conservation exist, including mild heat, salt, and pH adjustments. However, not all treatments are of interest d ue to undesired
changes in taste, texture and quality. Traditional thermal and preservative conservation can have negative health issues and often lead to reduced nutritional quality of foods.
High pressure processing (HPP) is a new and promising method. It has reached increasing popularity as it can prolong shelf life and preserve the quality of the food. However, LM is highly durable and some survive the HPP treatment by having fast recovery. They are even
able to grow in refrigeration. Recent studies show that stress induced by HPP damages primarily the cell walls, cell membrane and DNA
structures. The bacteria respond by activating regulatory genes and pathways that are responsible for the expression of specific repair
enzymes, repairing the damages in a very efficient manner, thereby preventing cell death. Targeting these regulatory genes and pathw ays
will provide an excellent foundation for developing SafeFood, an improved HPP method which can fight foodborne bacteria.
This transnational SafeFood industrial biotechnology project unites 8 groups from 6 countries across Europe, managed by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), with the purpose to turn food safe, by killing the contaminators LM. By following a carefully laid plan (Figure 1), the consortium will study which mechanisms permit  |
Summary
Fresh and ready-to-eat (RTE) foods are becoming increasingly popular in Europe. Food, particularly RTE, is susceptible to foodborne pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes (LM). The LM is the cause of listeriosis, a disease with increasingly health and economica lissues in Europe. Food manufacturers must comply with strict EU regulations of LM in food, whereas the US adopted a zero-listeria policy.
This poses also great economical and environmental challenges, due to large food waste and short expiration dates. Various ways for mild conservation exist, including mild heat, salt, and pH adjustments. However, not all treatments are of interest d ue to undesired
changes in taste, texture and quality. Traditional thermal and preservative conservation can have negative health issues and often lead to reduced nutritional quality of foods.
High pressure processing (HPP) is a new and promising method. It has reached increasing popularity as it can prolong shelf life and preserve the quality of the food. However, LM is highly durable and some survive the HPP treatment by having fast recovery. They are even
able to grow in refrigeration. Recent studies show that stress induced by HPP damages primarily the cell walls, cell membrane and DNA
structures. The bacteria respond by activating regulatory genes and pathways that are responsible for the expression of specific repair
enzymes, repairing the damages in a very efficient manner, thereby preventing cell death. Targeting these regulatory genes and pathw ays
will provide an excellent foundation for developing SafeFood, an improved HPP method which can fight foodborne bacteria.
This transnational SafeFood industrial biotechnology project unites 8 groups from 6 countries across Europe, managed by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), with the purpose to turn food safe, by killing the contaminators LM. By following a carefully laid plan (Figure 1), the consortium will study which mechanisms permit the LM to respond efficiently to HPP, by employing state-of-the-art biotechnology methods, including next generation high throughput RNA seq, Digital PCR gene expression, sophisticated micro- and molecular biology, new gene deletion methods, molecular imaging, high throughput quantification by flow cytometry, bioinformatic, and unique HPP equipment. This study will reveal regulatory genes that can render the LM sensitive to HPP. More specifically,
we seek to neutralize the repair mechanisms of the cellular envelope. In collaboration with the food industry, our partner APAP and its
owner and food producer NOEL, we will test food additives that can target the genes we found, and can be added to the food prior to H PP
application. Exposure of the weakened LM to HPP will rupture its cellular envelope causing it to leak and die, leaving the food itself purged .
The elaborated plan involves six work packages (WP), carefully detail every step in the process (see Work Packages and Figure 2 for
details).
Following a successful testing period, a patent application will be managed by NTNU Technology Transfer Office. More intensive testing
of the additives will be conducted by a spin-off company (partially supported by NTNU) after the project ends, and an application to th e
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will be submitted for evaluation of the additives. The results will be also exploited by APAP,
offering food producers the SafeFood solution. Several databases with valuable information about LM morphology and genetic regu lation
will be share with the scientific community in open repositories. Knowledge transfer between Germany-Romania and Finland-Portugal wil l
promote the spread of IB competence across european countries and grant educational opportunity for several Phd students. To
conclude, SafeFood will provide safety and healthier food products for consumers (public), improved economy for the
industry, less food waste (environmental) and promote transnational IB research. |