ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Minerva Biotecnologica 2011 March;23(1):23-32

Copyright © 2011 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Detection methods for the identification of Alicyclobacillus species involved in food spoilage

Breveglieri G. ^{1, 2}, Masiero L. ^{3, 4}, Spisani S. ⁴, De Taddeo H. ³

¹ Biotechnology Center, Ferrara, Italy 2 ER-GenTech, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Section of Molecular Biology, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy 3 C.A.S. S.p.A., Steinhauser Group, Castagnaro, Verona, Italy 4 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Section of Molecular Biology, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy

Alicyclobacilli are thermo-acidophilic, endospore forming, non-pathogenic bacteria which can grow and multiply in acidic products such as fruit and vegetable juices, concentrates, and beverages, to cell concentrations high enough to produce off-flavour and odour taints, leading to product spoilage. As they can survive the common product thermal processing, like pasteurisation, a problem for the food industry has recently arisen and has not been solved yet. The bacterial characteristics, the impact for food industry in terms of spoilage incidents, as well as the currently available methods of detection are reported in the present review article.