Minor project
My research question is the factors
affecting preservative activity of reuterin can provide possibilities to apply
reuterin in many kinds of food. Reuterin is an antimicrobial compound produced
by the food grade lactic acid bacterium Lactobacillus reuteri. This
substance has high potential as a broad spectrum food preservative. The issue
is contested with some researcher saying reuterin can be apply as preservative in
food and others saying it can be easily converted to inactive form which
depends on environmental condition of food.
Researchers who have looked at this
subject are El-Ziney et al. (1999) and Lüthi-Peng et al. (2002). The former
encourages the use of reuterin produced from Lactobacillus reuteri as preservative
for microbial decontamination in meat products and the latter found that reuterin
can be easily transformed to other compounds that cannot exhibit antimicrobial
activity.
El-Ziney et al. (1999) reported that Escherichia
coli O157:H7 count on the surface of cooked pork meat with 100 AU/g of
reuterin decrease by 5.0 log cfu/g after 1 day of storage at 7 °C. Reuterin at
a concentration of 250 AU/g reduce 3.0 log cfu/g of Listeria monocytogenes
after 1 week of storage at 7 °C. They suggest that reuterin could be used as
food preservative, especially in cold stored food.
Lüthi-Peng et al. (2002) state that reuterin
is less stable in milk and de Man, Rogosa and Sharpe (MRS) medium than in
water. It can react with other components in the food or dehydrate to acrolein which
is inactive form at higher temperatures above 20 °C.
Debate centers on the basic issue of
environmental conditions in food that affect on stability and preservative
activity of reuterin have to be investigated because there is no study has been
done on this point.
My work will be closer to Lüthi-Peng et
al. (2002) because I will elucidate a number of parameters, such as pH, salt, concentration,
and temperature that influence on the stability and preservative activity of
reuterin. Due to the applicability of reuterin in foodstuffs, an understanding
of the factors that influence the stability and preservative activity will be
determined.
Hopefully my contribution will provide a
systematic investigation of the antimicrobial effect of reuterin under
different conditions of concentration, temperature, salt and pH relevant to
food products, and describe the interactions between these environmental
factors and reuterin.
Reference
list
El-Ziney,
M.G., van den Tempel, T., Debevere, J.M., Jakobsen, M. (1999). Application of
reuterin produced by Lactobacillus reuteri 12002 for meat
decontamination and preservation. Journal of Food Protection, 62,
257-261.
Lüthi-Peng,
Q., Schärer, S. and Puhan, Z. (2002). Production and stability of
3-hydroxypropionaldehyde in Lactobacillus reuteri. Applied
Microbiology and Biotechnology, 60, 73-80
