Selection for Antimicrobial Resistance in Foodborne Pathogens through Exposure to UV Light and Nonthermal Atmospheric Plasma Decontamination Techniques

Abstract

The emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance along the food chain can be influenced by the different antimicrobial strategies used from farm to fork. This study evidences that two novel, not yet widely used, nonthermal microbial decontamination techniques, UV light and nonthermal atmospheric plasma, can select variants with increased resistance to various clinically relevant antibiotics, such as ciprofloxacin, streptomycin, tetracycline, and erythromycin. Whole-genome analysis of the resistant variants obtained for Salmonella spp. allowed identification of the genetic changes responsible for the observed phenotypes and suggested that some antimicrobial classes are more susceptible to the cross-resistance phenomena observed. This information is relevant, since these novel decontamination techniques are being proposed as possible alternative green techniques for the decontamination of environments and equipment in food and clinical settings.