Adhesion of Staphylococcus aureus: Its importance in poultry processing
Titel:
Adhesion of Staphylococcus aureus: Its importance in poultry processing
Auteur:
Chaffey, Brian J. Dodd, Christine E. R. Bolton, Kathryn J. Waites, Will M.
Verschenen in:
Biofouling
Paginering:
Jaargang 5 (1991) nr. 1-2 pagina's 103-114
Jaar:
1991-11
Inhoud:
Strains of Staphylococcus aureus can become endemic within poultry processing plants and increase the contamination of the poultry carcasses by up to one thousand fold, leading to their rejection for use in further processed products. The main contamination occurs on the rubber fingers of the defeathering machinery, where the endemic strains, which grow in clumps and are eight times more resistant to hypochlorite than non-endemic strains, resist cleaning and disinfection by producing a glucosamine-rich extracellular polymer, which has been characterised by electron microscopy and chemical tests. Use of plasmid profiling has shown that the endemic, polymer-producing strains are present at about 4% of the S. aureus population on the live birds but form the majority of the strains isolated from the exit of the first plucker and, due to their extremely adhesive nature, contaminate the carcasses as they pass through the pluckers so that these strains predominate in the S. aureus flora of the final product.