Dear Colleagues,

Food safety is one of the most important issues worldwide, and contamination incidents related to food hygiene, storage, pathogens, and pesticides are key issues due to their direct effect on human health and on animals. The consumption of unsafe food can lead to several diseases with major consequences, mainly for vulnerable individuals, such as immunocompromised patients, pregnant women, young people, and the elderly. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that ingesting food contaminated by viruses, bacteria, parasites, biotoxins and chemical compounds could result in more than 600 million contamination cases (nearly 1 in 10 people globally) and 420,000 deaths. Both Gram-positive (i.e., Bacillus cereus, Clostridium botulinum, and Clostridium perfringens) and Gram-negative bacteria (i.e., Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., Listeria monocytogenes) are frequently found on foodstuff batches, and are often connected with foodborne outbreaks. The microbial contamination can occur during any stage of the food chain and the sources are very diverse: pre- and post-harvest phases, processing/handling, and transportation are some important steps for food commodities. The bacteria that are directly linked to their virulence through specific modifications have the capability to adapt and survive under hostile or unfavorable environmental conditions, such as low nutrients, presence/absence of oxygen, high temperatures, acid pH, sanitizers, etc. Moreover, most microorganisms can adhere to surfaces of food processing facilities due to unsuccessful cleaning and sanitizing procedures and form biofilm, representing as probable reservoir of microbial contamination. L. monocytogenes is the microorganism that is able to survive and proliferate in apparently hostile environments, including foodstuffs with low pH and/or water activity, as well as at refrigeration temperatures. Challenge tests and predictive microbiology models are the main instruments that food business operators have to demonstrate to the competent authorities that their ready-to-eat foods will be safe during their shelf life. More studies are, however, necessary to better understand and accurately predict the growth and inactivation dynamics that the different microorganisms could show in the peculiar conditions that they could encounter in different foods.    

Quick and accurate detection of foodborne pathogens is of great importance to the defense of public health. Omic technologies (i.e., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) have been used recently to guarantee food authenticity and transparency, traceability, food safety investigation, and other fields. 

Omic techniques have been used for the rapid identification of foodborne pathogens, and have led to essential applications of target microorganisms as well. In addition, these techniques have identified peculiarities of microorganisms in foods to address the alterations in the organoleptic characteristics of foods caused by microorganism–environment interactions. Approaches based on omic technologies provide relevant information in the biological identity, geographic origin, and characteristics of food-making processes. The term “FOODOMICS” has been innovating the studies of food science, microbiology, and nutrition, providing evidence on food quality and safety, as well as human health. This expression is used to represent a subject that indicates the application of advanced omic technologies in the field of food and nutrition, especially those involving genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, which depict complex results to codify. The techniques have been applied to identify pathogenic microorganism cultures in food and food production facilities. Thus, it can be stated that the application of omic methods is extremely helpful to the development of safe food products, as it prevents the risk of foodborne diseases.

The topic of this Special Issue is to collect relevant papers that are able to shed light on the different aspects of the behavior of zoonotic pathogens in food processing environments and in foodstuffs, including the new advances in strain characterization, management of food processing environment contaminations, shelf-life studies, growth, and inactivation dynamics.

Dr. Maria Schirone
Dr. Mirella Luciani
Dr. Luigi Iannetti
Guest Editors

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• foodborne pathogens
• food contamination
• food safety
• omics technologies
• challenge tests
• predictive microbiology