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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, January 2003, p. 668-672, Vol. 69, No. 1
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.1.668-672.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Inactivation of Salmonella enterica Serovar Enteritidis by Ultrasonic Waves under Pressure at Different Water Activities
I. Álvarez, P. Mañas, F. J. Sala, and S. Condón*
Tecnología de los Alimentos, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50.013 Zaragoza, Spain
Received 25 April 2002/
Accepted 18 October 2002

ABSTRACT
The inactivation of
Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis
by ultrasonic waves (20 kHz; 117-µm wavelength) under
pressure (175 kPa) at nonlethal temperatures (manosonication
[MS]) and lethal temperatures (manothermosonication [MTS]) in
media of different water activities has been investigated. Heat
decimal reduction time values increased 30 times when the water
activity was decreased from nearly 1 to 0.96, but the MS resistance
was increased only twofold. The inactivation of
Salmonella serovar
Enteritidis by ultrasound under pressure at low water activities
was a phenomenon of the "all-or-nothing" type. A synergistic
lethal effect was observed between heat and ultrasound in media
with reduced water activity; the lower the water activity, the
greater the synergistic effect. This work could be useful for
improving sanitation and preservation treatments of foods, especially
those which are sensitive to temperature and those in which
components protect microorganisms to heat. It also contributes
to our knowledge of microbial inactivation mechanisms by MS
and MTS treatments.

INTRODUCTION
During the last 3 decades, the number of food poisoning outbreaks
in which different
Salmonella enterica serotypes were involved
has increased in industrialized countries (
34,
35). In the late
1980s, the frequency of isolation of
Salmonella enterica serotype
Enteritidis from eggs and egg products has increased steadily
(
25,
34). The influence of different environmental factors on
the survival of other
Salmonella serotypes has been investigated
repeatedly (
12,
13,
15,
37), but little is known about their
effect on
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis.
It is well-known that the heat resistance of microorganisms is influenced by many environmental factors. The water activity (aw) of the heating medium is one of the most important factors (5, 7, 10, 16, 36). The thermal protective effect of media with reduced aw is very high (100-fold) (14, 33). The use of high-intensity heat treatments to obtain the required microbial inactivation would impair food quality. Therefore, perhaps the new nonthermal methods of bacterial inactivation would be good alternative methods for the preservation and sanitation of products with reduced aw.
Microbial inactivation by high-power ultrasound under pressure at nonlethal temperatures (manosonication [MS]) and lethal temperatures (manothermosonication [MTS]) was first reported by Sala et al. in 1995 (29). Recently, Raso et al. (27) reported the influence of temperature, pressure, and amplitude of ultrasonic waves on the lethal effect of ultrasound. Pagán et al. (24) studied the effects of MS and MTS on gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial species, and Mañas et al. (20) studied the lethal effect of MS and MTS on several Salmonella serotypes suspended in buffer and in liquid whole egg. However, no specific investigations have been performed on Salmonella bacterial inactivation by ultrasonic waves under pressure in media with reduced water activity. From published data (20), it could be deduced that the eventual advantages of MS or MTS for sanitation and/or food preservation purposes will be higher in temperature-sensitive foods (e.g., when raw materials are contaminated with very heat-resistant bacterial species or when food components protect microorganisms against heat).
The purpose of this work was to investigate the inactivation of Salmonella serovar Enteritidis by ultrasonic waves under pressure at different temperatures in media of different water activities. The heat resistance of this microorganism in the same medium was also studied as a control.

Bacterial culture and media.
The
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis strain (ATCC 13076) used
in this investigation was supplied by the Spanish Type Culture
Collection. Erlenmeyer flasks containing 50 ml of sterile nutrient
broth (Biolife, Milan, Italy) were inoculated to a final concentration
of 10
6 cells ml
-1 and incubated at 37°C under agitation
(130 rpm) (Selecta; Rotabit, Barcelona, Spain). When the stationary
growth phase was reached (after 24 h of incubation), suspensions
were stored at 4°C until use. This storage did not change
cell resistance to heat or ultrasonic waves for the time in
which this investigation was performed (
P < 0.05) (data not
shown).

Heat, MS, and MTS treatments.
Heat, MS, and MTS treatments were performed in a specially designed
resistometer as described previously (
27). The resistometer,
a mixing method that avoids the heating lag phases, allowed
us to obtain survival curves to heat and ultrasound treatments
at different temperatures, pressures, and ultrasonic wave amplitudes.
Once the temperature, pressure, and amplitude of ultrasonic
waves were stabilized, the cell suspension (0.2 ml) was injected
into the 23-ml treatment chamber containing the treatment medium.
Before the injection, cells were allowed to adapt to a solution
with the same a
w as the treatment medium for 5 min. Longer adaptation
times did not change the survival curve profiles (data not shown).
After injection and at preset intervals, 0.1-ml samples for
each treatment time were directly collected into test tubes
of melted sterile nutrient agar (NA) (Biolife) and immediately
plated. Survival curves were plotted, with 6 to 15 separate
samples collected over time. NA plates were incubated for 24
h at 37°C. Previous experiments showed that longer incubation
times did not influence survivor counts. When damage and repair
mechanisms were investigated, NA with 3% (wt/vol) sodium chloride
(Panreac, Barcelona, Spain) added (NA-SC) was used as the recovery
medium. This medium did not affect the viability of undamaged
cells (data not shown). The NA-SC plates were incubated for
48 h at 37°C. After incubation, the CFU were counted with
an Image Analyzer Automatic Counter (Protos; Analytical Measuring
Systems, Cambridge, United Kingdom) as described elsewhere (
3).
McIlvaine citrate phosphate buffer (pH 7; aw > 0.99) (6) or the same medium with different amounts of sucrose (Azucarera Española, Madrid, Spain) added (according to the data of Robinson and Stokes [28]) was prepared and used as the treatment media. The final aw of the treatment media (0.98 and 0.96) was measured at room temperature with a specially designed instrument (Water Activity System model CX-1; Decagon Devices, Inc., Pullman, Wash.).

Heat, MS, and MTS resistance parameters.
The inactivation rate was measured by determining the decimal
reduction time value (
Dt for heat,
DMS for MS, and
DMTS for
MTS treatments) from the slope of the regression line of the
survival curves. Decimal reduction time curves (DRTC) were obtained
by plotting log
10 D values versus their corresponding heating
temperatures, and
z values (increase in temperature [in degrees
Celsius] for the
D value to decrease by one log
10 cycle) were
calculated. The coefficient of determination (
r2) of survival
curves and the 95% confidence limits of
D and
z values were
calculated by using the Excel package (Microsoft, Seattle, Wash.).
The individual contributions of heat and ultrasound under pressure to the lethal effect of MTS treatments at different temperatures were evaluated by determining how well experimental values matched the theoretical DRTC values. Theoretical DMTS values were calculated, as Raso et al. (27) described, with the equation DMTS = (Dt x DMS)/(Dt + DMS).

Heat resistance.
The survival curves obtained in this investigation followed
first-order inactivation kinetics, at least for 99.9% of the
cell population. Neither temperature adaptation phenomena nor
subpopulations resistant to high heat or ultrasound under pressure
were detected. As a consequence,
D values were a useful parameter
for resistance comparison purposes.
Table 1 shows the decimal reduction time values at different temperatures of Salmonella serovar Enteritidis heated in media with different aws. The 95% confidence limits and the r2 values of the corresponding survival curves have also been included to illustrate the precision of the results. Table 1 also includes the z values, their 95% confidence limits, and the corresponding r2 values. The temperature resistance values for Salmonella serovar Enteritidis treated in McIlvaine buffer of pH 7 (aw > 0.99) found in this study were consistent with the little data published (2, 20) on this serotype and were similar to those obtained for other temperature-sensitive serotypes of Salmonella (8, 9, 20). Also, the z value was similar to that reported for most vegetative cells investigated (17, 20, 22, 30). From these data, it could be deduced that current heat pasteurization treatments for liquid food with high aws (close to 1) were sufficient to avoid a food poisoning outbreak caused by Salmonella serovar Enteritidis.
The a
w of the heating media had a great influence on the heat
resistance of this serotype. The
D value at 60 min increased
from 0.10 to 0.88 and 2.70 min when the a
w was reduced from
>0.99 to 0.98 and 0.96, respectively. The
z value significantly
increased (
P > 0.05) from 4.9 to 6.4°C when the a
w was
decreased from >0.99 to 0.96. Therefore, the thermal protective
effect of media with reduced a
w increased with increases in
the treatment temperature. Comparing our data with those obtained
by other investigators is difficult, since the effect of a
w on microbial inactivation depends on the solute (
1,
4,
9,
16,
31). From published data obtained for solutions of sucrose and
water, it could be deduced that the effect of a
w on the thermal
tolerance of
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis was among the highest
published for
Salmonella serotypes. It was similar to that observed
for serovars Alachua, Anatum, and Montevideo (
9) but greater
than those reported for serovars Infantis, Typhimurium, and
Tennessee (
8,
9,
33). For
Salmonella serovar Senftenberg, the
effect of a
w of the heating media was lower (
Dt x 2 or
Dt x 3) (
8,
9,
19). It is generally believed that the thermal protective
effect of reduced a
ws is higher for the most heat-sensitive
species (
1,
8,
9). Our results are in accordance with this hypothesis.
Figure 1 shows the survival curves of Salmonella serovar Enteritidis heated at 60°C in McIlvaine buffer (pH 7) with an aw of >0.99 and in the same medium with 41% (wt/vol) sucrose added (aw = 0.96), obtained by growing cells after treatment in NA and NA-SC. As can be observed in Fig. 1, the percentage of damaged cells increased with the treatment time and was greater at reduced aws. The medium with reduced aw protected Salmonella serovar Enteritidis by increasing the thermal stability of some bacterial structures to heat. However, a higher injury repair capability also contributed to the high thermal tolerance of cells heated in media with lower aws. The Dt value obtained in NA-SC was 1.4 times lower than that obtained in NA after heating in citrate phosphate buffer (0.07 and 0.10 min, respectively) but 4 times lower after heating in medium with an aw of 0.96 (0.62 and 2.46 min, respectively).
Overall, the thermal inactivation of
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis
in liquid foods with an a
w of 0.96 would require an increase,
by approximately 30 times, of the intensity of current treatments
designed for the pasteurization of liquid foods with an a
w close
to 1. These thermal treatments would probably impair the quality
of most liquid foods. Therefore, alternative sanitation processes
would be very useful.

MS or MTS resistance.
Table
2 shows the decimal reduction time values for ultrasonic
waves (117-µm wavelength) under pressure (175 kPa) at
different temperatures of
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis treated
in media with different a
ws. The
DMS value in citrate phosphate
buffer of pH 7 (0.89 min) was similar to that previously reported
for this serotype by different researchers (
20,
24). While the
heat resistance of
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis increased
30 times when the a
w of the treatment media decreased from >0.99
to 0.96 (Table
1), the
DMS value (Table
2) hardly doubled (0.89
and 1.37 min, respectively). This seemed to confirm that the
mechanisms by which heat and ultrasound inactivate microorganisms
are different. Furthermore, comparison of the survival curves
obtained by growing cells in NA and in NA-SC after MS treatments
in citrate phosphate buffer of pH 7 showed the lack of any damaged
cells (data not shown), which contrasted with the results observed
after heat treatments (Fig.
1). This would also indicate that
the bacterial inactivation by MS is a phenomenon of the "all-or-nothing"
type, probably due to the mechanical disruption of the cell
envelopes, as has previously been observed by several researchers
(
20,
21,
23,
26) in media with high a
ws.
View this table:
[in this window]
[in a new window]
|
TABLE 2. Resistance to ultrasonic waves (117-µm wavelength; 20 kHz) under pressure (175 kPa) at several temperatures of Salmonella serovar Enteritidis suspended in media with different aws
|
Figure
2 shows the relationship between the temperature and
decimal reduction time values to MS and MTS treatments of
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis obtained in media with a
ws of >0.99 (Fig.
2A), 0.98 (Fig.
2B), and 0.96 (Fig.
2C). The DRTC corresponding
to heat treatments and the theoretical DRTC corresponding to
MS and MTS treatments have also been included. The theoretical
DRTC has been calculated, as proposed by Raso et al. (
27), by
assuming that heat and ultrasonic waves acted independently
and that heat, MS, and MTS destruction of bacterial cells were
single reactions ruled by first-order kinetics. As shown in
Fig.
2A, experimental data obtained in McIlvaine buffer (pH
7) fitted the theoretical decimal reduction time values with
a
r2 of

0.98. The
DMS value was the same until 50°C. From
50 to 60°C, the rapid decrease in the
D value would be due
to the exponential increase in the lethality of heat by linear
increases in temperature, making the lethality of ultrasound
negligible at 60°C. Over this temperature, the
DMTS and
Dt became equal. The same behavior has been observed in several
bacterial species treated at high a
ws (
20,
23,
24,
27). These
data indicated that the lethality of MTS was the result of adding
the inactivation rate due to heat to that due to ultrasound.
The individual contributions of heat and ultrasound to the whole
lethal effect depended on the temperature.
In contrast to the values observed when
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis
was subjected to MT or MTS treatment in citrate phosphate buffer
(pH 7) (Fig.
2A), the theoretical
DMS and
DMTS values did not
fit the experimental values obtained in media with reduced a
ws
(Fig.
2B and C). The lower the a
w was, the greater the differences
were. The
DMTS value at 60°C in medium with an a
w of 0.96
was three times lower than was expected. This indicated the
existence of a synergistic lethal effect between heat and ultrasound.
The existence of a synergistic effect in which the whole lethal
effect was higher than the lethal effect of heat added to the
lethal effect of ultrasound has been previously reported for
bacterial cells resistant to very high heat (
21,
24).

Conclusions.
The addition of sucrose to the treatment media strongly protected
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis cells to heat but hardly changed
their MS resistance.
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis inactivation
by ultrasonic waves under pressure was a phenomenon of the all-or-nothing
type. No sodium chloride-sensitive cells could be detected after
MS treatments. The whole lethal effect of MTS in phosphate citrate
buffer (pH 7) with an a
w of >0.99 was the result of the lethal
effect of heat added to that of ultrasonic waves under pressure.
When
Salmonella serovar Enteritidis cells were treated by MTS
in media with reduced a
ws, a synergistic effect was observed.
The lower the a
w was, the higher the synergism. The synergistic
effect was due to the sensitizing effect of heat, and ultrasound
was the ultimate cause of bacterial inactivation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by a scholarship granted to
I.A. by the "Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte."
We thank E. Pickett for help correcting the English in the manuscript.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Tecnología de los Alimentos, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Zaragoza, Miguel Servet 177, 50.013 Zaragoza, Spain. Phone: 34 976 76 15 81. Fax: 34 976 76 15 90. E-mail:
scondon{at}posta.unizar.es.


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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, January 2003, p. 668-672, Vol. 69, No. 1
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.1.668-672.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.