Modelling the probability of Listeria monocytogenes growing in cheese
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- Written by Michael Mullan
Commercial cheese correctly manufactured with pasteurised milk and lactic starter cultures has a well deserved reputation as a nutritious and safe product. However, under certain circumstances cheese may support the growth of food poisoning bacteria or serve as a ‘vehicle’ for their transmission.
Four pathogens are of particular significance, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella species, enteropathogenic Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. Listeria monocytogenes, the causal agent of listeriosis, is arguably the most significant of this group.
L. monocytogenes is particularly significant since it can grow / survive for long periods in cheese and cause serious illness leading to death; the death rate arising from listeriosis can exceed 30%. It can also induce abortion in humans and its ability to cross the placenta, and access the brain makes it a particularly dangerous pathogen.
This article provides an introduction to the binary and ordinal logistic regression models developed by Bolton and Frank (1999) for predicting the probability of L. monocytogenes growing in cheese after 42 days storage at 10°C.
Characteristics of Listeria monocytogenes
L. monocytogenes is a Gram-positive, non-sporing bacterium that can grow in high salt environments (up to 10 % sodium chloride), and over a wide pH (5.0-9.6) and temperature range (< 3° – 45°C); it can grow aerobically and microaerophilically ( Bajard et al., 1996; Pearson and Marth, 1990).
