S
almonella enterica
serovar
typhimurium
(
Salmonella typhimurium
) is the most common causative agent of human
gastroenteritis after consumption of contaminated seafood. The use of lytic bacteriophages against this pathogen can be a
new and promising approach for the prevention of food-contamination and food-borne infection. This study investigated the
potential application of the bacteriophage SE-5 during depuration to reduce
S. typhimurium
in cockles (
Cerastoderma edule
) at
different multiplicity of infection (MOI). Cockles were infected with 106 colony-forming units (CFU)/mL of
S. typhimurium
in the seawater and each infected group was treated with four different MOI values: 100, 10, 1 and 0.1. Infected cockles were
depurated in non-recirculating seawater at 16°C for 12 hour. After
S. typhimurium
accumulation at 16° C, the initial mean
values of bacteria in cockles were 6.20 log CFU/g. Depuration with phages at MOI 0.1 was the best condition to inactivate
S.
typhimurium
in cockles, the concentration was reduced by 1.7 log CFU/g after 2 hours of depuration. Reduction for the other
MOI values (MOI=1; MOI=10; MOI=100) was 1.13, 1.21 and 2.10 log CFU/g after 6 hours, 12 hours and 12 hours of treatment
respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a depuration trial using bacteriophage in the cockle treatment process.
The data of this study indicate clearly that the application of the bacteriophages could reduce significantly the population of
S.
typhimurium
in infected cockles. Moreover, cockles could be maintained alive during the depuration process. Therefore, the
application of bacteriophage was effectively proven to be useful for shellfish depuration