Incorporation of Advanced Molecular Techniques in Food Quality Control and Safety

Dear Colleagues,

The microbial community of foods is a group of microbes that live in the food matrix, interacting with each other and with the environment. Raw foods, especially those of animal origin, contain a variety of microbes from microorganisms with technological/industrial interest to undesirable foodborne pathogens. One type of product with great value and appreciation by consumers are fermented products. During the fermentation process, microorganisms play a critical role for their quality and safety. Currently, the vast explosion of high-throughput molecular methods, e.g., next-generation sequencing, and mathematical modeling techniques, e.g., predictive microbiology or source attribution, has made the detailed investigation of microbial ecology of foods and their safety possible.

The Special Issue supports the submission of original research or review papers dealing with the microbial community of fermented (meat, dairy, sourdough, vegetables, and wine) and non-fermented (meat, including poultry, and dairy) foods to underpin food business operators in the control of quality and safety of their products. Manuscripts addressing the following topics will be considered for publication: study of the ecology of fermented and non-fermented foods, including starter culture investigation, based on molecular techniques (whole genome sequencing, metataxonomics, shotgun metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and PCR-based techniques), metabolomics, predictive modeling, and bioinformatics, including the integration of different omics disciplines. In addition, manuscripts addressing the epidemiological investigation, phylogeny relationship, subtyping (MLST, MLVA, cgMLST/wgMLST, cgSNP/wgMLST), and antimicrobial resistance of foodborne pathogens based on molecular techniques (whole genome sequencing and PCR-based methods) as well as mathematical modeling (predictive microbiology and source attribution) and bioinformatics (genome characterization and comparative genomics) are also welcomed.

Dr. Marios Mataragas
Dr. Loulouda Bosnea
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Microbiology is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.