Contemporary procedures and methods in microbiological control of meat and meat products

The development of molecular methods made available different analytical protocols for both quality control purposes of processes used in food production and for detection and identification of food-borne pathogens. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is among all the most suitable technique for this kind of purposes, and from 1990 a large number of scientific papers have been published on the detection, identification and characterization of microorganisms in food by PCR. In particular, the field of food microbiology dealing with safely found in PCR an important tool to control the hygienic quality of foodstuffs. Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp. Campylobacter coli and jejuni, Yersinia enterocolitica and Bacillus cereus are only some of the pathogens for which PCR-based molecular methods are available. Moreover, the implementation of PCR-coupled techniques, such as restriction enzyme analysis, single strand conformation polymorphism denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and temperature gradient gel electrophoresis, opened new fields of research, where DNA or RNA are extracted directly from the sample and subsequently analyzed. The most important advantage of molecular methods is the rapidity with which results are obtained. In less than 8 h results on the presence of a specific pathogen or the profiling of the populations present during food production can be obtained. In this paper, two examples of application of molecular techniques in the field of food microbiology are presented. The first describes the application of molecular methods to directly detect and identify Listeria spp. and Listeria monocytogenes in food, whereas the second focuses on the profiling of bacterial populations during a natural fermentation of sausages.