Cellular response of Campylobacter jejuni to trisodium phosphate.

The highly alkaline compound trisodium phosphate (TSP) is used as an intervention to reduce the load of Campylobacter on poultry meat in U.S. poultry slaughter plants. The aim of the present study was to investigate the cellular responses of Campylobacter jejuni NCTC11168 when exposed to sublethal concentrations of TSP. Preexposure of C. jejuni to TSP resulted in a significant increase in heat sensitivity, suggesting that a combined heat and TSP treatment may increase reduction of C. jejuni. A microarray analysis identified a limited number of genes that were differently expressed after sublethal TSP exposure; however, the response was mainly associated with ion transport processes. C. jejuni NCTC11168 nhaA1 (Cj1655c) and nhaA2 (Cj1654c), which encode orthologues to the Escherichia coli NhaA cation/proton antiporter, were able to partially restore TSP, alkaline, and sodium resistance phenotypes to an E. coli cation/proton antiporter mutant. In addition, inhibition of resistance-nodulation-cell division (RND) multidrug efflux pumps by the inhibitor PaßN (Phe-Arg ß-naphthylamide dihydrochloride) decreased tolerance to sublethal TSP. Therefore, we propose that NhaA1/NhaA2 cation/proton antiporters and RND multidrug efflux pumps function in tolerance to sublethal TSP exposure in C. jejuni.

Chemical decontamination of Campylobacter jejuni on chicken skin and meat.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of 11 chemical compounds to reduce Campylobacter jejuni on chicken skin and meat samples dipped in chemical solutions. Treatment of skin samples for 1 min using tartaric acid (2%) and caprylic acid sodium salt (5%) caused reductions of C. jejuni NCTC11168, which were not significantly different from the reduction obtained by sterile water (0.95 log). Statistically larger reductions (1.57 to 3.81 log) were caused by formic acid (2%), lactic acid (2.5%), trisodium phosphate (10%), capric acid sodium salt (5%), grapefruit seed extract (1.6%), and chlorhexidine diacetate salt hydrate (1%). The most effective compounds were cetylpyridinium chloride (0.5%) and benzalkonium chloride (1%) (>4.2 log). However, when these treated samples were stored for 24 h at 5 degrees C, cetylpyridinium chloride, benzalkonium chloride, and grapefruit seed extract were less effective, indicating that some cells may recover after a 1-min treatment with these chemicals. An increase in treatment time to 15 min resulted in higher effectiveness of trisodium phosphate and formic acid. Interestingly, when reduction of the C. jejuni population was compared on chicken skin and meat, sterile water and lactic acid caused considerably larger reductions on skin than on meat, whereas the opposite was seen for caprylic acid sodium salt. In conclusion, this study has identified chemicals with substantial reduction effects on C. jejuni. The analysis has further emphasized that treatment time and food matrix affect the outcome in an unpredictable manner and, therefore, detailed studies are needed to evaluate the reduction effectiveness of chemicals.