Studies on the effect of oils extracted from medicinal plants on foodborne pathogens and their enzymatic activities

Abstract

The study was done to investigate the foodborne pathogens and antimicrobial activities of essential oils. Most of the foodborne pathogens were ubiquitous in nature as there is a possibility of cross contamination between one or several products during processing. Microbial foodborne infections occur when food contaminated with microbes is eaten and the bacteria continues to grow in the intestines, setting up an infection which causes illness. Pathogenic foodborne were detected and evaluated in different foods samples. Different selective media were used as mentioned in material and methods to isolate and purify bacteria and fungi. These isolates were subjected to cultures and microscopic examination. The bacterial isolates were found to be belong to eight species which included E. coli, Bacillus Cereus, Sal. Typhi, P. aeruginosa, S. aureus, Klebsiella pneumonia, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Shigella bodyii. The isolated fungi were Asp. Flavus, Asp. Teries, Asp. Fumegatus, Asp. Niger, Fusarium, Fusarium, Rhizopus, Penicillium, Alternaria. 1) Seventy food samples were collected from different markets of health departments of ElSharkia governorate. According to the results, meat and poultry products were the most contaminated food type with foodborne pathogenic bacteria followed by dairy products, vegetable and fruit products and flour and bakery products respectively. While the least contaminated food type was canned products. Vegetable and fruit products were the most contaminated food type with fungi followed by bakery products, dairy products, Meat and poultry products. 2) Total count of bacterial and fungal isolates was estimated. Seventy-six bacterial isolates were collected from different food samples. Bacterial isolates were identified using macromorphological characteristics on different specific media, micromorphological characteristics using gram stain and biochemical tests. According to identifications criteria, 21 isolates were identified as E. coli, 11 isolates as Samonella typhi, 6 as Shigella bodyii, 16 as Staphylococcus aureus, 7 as Bacillus Cereus, 9 as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 3 as Neisseria gonorrhoeae and 3 as Klebsiella pneumonia.