The aims of this study were to assess antibiotic resistance pheno- and genotypes in foodborne, clinical, and environmental Listeria isolates, as well as to elucidate the horizontal gene transfer potential of detected resistance genes. A small fraction of in total 524 Listeria spp. isolates (3.1%) displayed acquired antibiotic resistance mainly to tetracycline (n = 11), but also to clindamycin (...

The technique of loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) utilizes four (or six) primers targeting six (or eight) regions within a fairly small segment of a genome for amplification, with concentration higher than that used in traditional PCR methods. The high concentrations of primers used leads to an increased likelihood of non-specific amplification induced by primer dimers. In this stu...

The objective of this study was to validate the fundamental heat-transfer mechanism governing the process of vacuum-steam-vacuum surface pasteurization of hot dogs. It was hypothesized that the steam could not directly flow into the pores below the surface of hot dogs, and the heat was transferred into these areas by conduction. A numerical analysis program was first developed to estimate the h...

Five bacteriocin-producing lactic acid bacteria (LAB):Enterococcus faecium ET05, Lactobacillus curvatus ET06, L. curvatus ET30, L. deldrueckii T32 and Pediococcus acidilactici ET34, selected by their capacity for growth and producing inhibition in vitro at high salt-on-water content, low emperature and anaerobic atmosphere, conditions simulating cold-smoked fish, were inoculated onto salmon fil...

Pairwise comparison of sequence data is intensively used for automated functional protein annotation, while graphical models emerge as promising candidates for an integration of various heterogeneous features. We designed a model, termed hRMN that integrates different genomic features and implemented a variant of belief propagation for functional annotation transfer. hRMN allows the assignment ...

Bacteriocin AMA-K produced by Lactobacillus plantarum AMA-K inhibits the growth of Enterococcus spp., Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Listeria spp. Growth of strain AMA-K in BHI, M17, soy milk and molasses was similar to growth in MRS. The effect of organic nitrogen sources, carbohydrates, glycerol, K2HPO4 and KH2PO4, MgSO4, MnSO4, tri-ammonium citrate, Tween 80, vitamins and initia...

The nearly 50,000 known Nudix proteins have a diverse array of functions, of which the most extensively studied is the catalyzed hydrolysis of aberrant nucleotide triphosphates. The functions of 171 Nudix proteins have been characterized to some degree, although physiological relevance of the assayed activities has not always been conclusively demonstrated. We investigated substrate specificity...

Attachment and biofilm formation by bacterial pathogens on surfaces in natural, industrial, and hospital settings lead to infections and illnesses and even death. Minimizing bacterial attachment to surfaces using controlled topography could reduce the spreading of pathogens and, thus, the incidence of illnesses and subsequent human and financial losses. In this context, the attachment of key mi...