Detection of Listeria monocytogenes in Foods and Characterization by PFGE

The aims of the present study were to investigate the prevalence of Listeria monocytogenes in 1042 foods collected from different market to characterize the isolates by phenotypical and molecular methods. In particular, L. monocytogenes obtained from different types of foods such as RTE (kimbap), fish (smoked salmon and seasoned-dried slice fish) and meat (cut raw beef and pork) from 2009 to 2011, were used. Twelve samples (2.1%) were positive for L. monocytogenes. Detection rate of L. monocytogenes varied significantly by food type and ranged from 1.1% to 5.2%. Meat is the highest prevalence for L. monocytogenes (5.2%) followed by RTE (1.8%) and Fish (1.1%). Twelve isolates were also serotyped by the agglutination method. The most common serotypes detected in the 12 strains tested were 1/4b (75.0%), followed by 1/2a (16.7%), and 1/2b (8.3%). For this study, we used serotyping and detected 6 different virulence-associated genes (inlA, inlB, plcA, plcB, hlyA, and actA) and 16s rRNA using multiplex-PCR. PFGE was performed to determine genetic characterization of L. monocytogenes strains to define the genetic diversity.