Abstract:
Understanding the activity and viability of bacterial populations provides an insight into their physiology, reactions to stress and response to environmental change. As the key goals in food safety involve the surveillance, control and risk reduction of foodborne pathogens, physiologically oriented studies are of great relevance, allowing for detection and prediction of growth and activity. This review examines the progress, utilization and pitfalls of innovative and emerging non-nucleic acid based methods that can be linked with data generated through genome sequencing projects to provide an enhanced understanding of foodborne pathogen physiology and activity