Evaluation of porcine gastric mucin assay for detection and quantification of human norovirus in fresh herbs and leafy vegetables.

Evaluation of porcine gastric mucin assay for detection and quantification of human norovirus in fresh herbs and leafy vegetables. Food Microbiol. 2019 Dec;84:103254 Authors: Suresh M, Harlow J, Nasheri N Abstract Leafy vegetables and fresh herbs are important parts of a healthy diet, however, they can be common vehicles of norovirus (NoV) infection and lead to serious health and economic concerns globally. NoV is highly infectious and persistent in the food and the environment, while being resistant to conventional food decontamination practices. Herbs and leafy greens are often consumed raw, and if contaminated with NoV, they may cause illness. Consequently, for outbreak prevention and surveillance purposes, sensitive and rapid methods are required to detect the presence of infectious NoV in naturally contaminated produce during its shelf life. Herein, we compared the extraction efficiency of the ISO/TS 15216-1:2017 method with the porcine gastric mucin coated magnetic beads (PGM-MB) assay, combined with heat-denaturation for RNA extraction, for detection of human NoV in artificially contaminated fresh green seaweed, basil, mint, and baby spinach. Droplet-digital RT-PCR was used to quantify the extracted genome by both methods. Our data demonstrated that while the PGM-MB assay takes considerably less time, it yields significantly higher recovery rates compared with the ISO/TS 15216-1:2017. Furthermore, since this method has the abi...
Source: Food Microbiology - Category: Food Science Authors: Tags: Food Microbiol Source Type: research