Publications by authors named "M Gianfranceschi"
Article Synopsis
- The public health risk of ready-to-eat (RTE) foods is influenced by how well contamination is controlled during production and varies by the specific strain of pathogens present.
- Current analytical methods can only identify and quantify pathogens at the species level, not differentiating between harmful and less harmful strains.
- A recent outbreak of listeriosis in Italy led to enhanced surveillance methods, including the development of a new multiplex PCR technique to detect specific virulence genes, improving food safety assessments.
Here, we report the genome sequence of serovar 1/2a strain IZSAM_Lm_15_17439_A144, isolated in Italy from a patient during a outbreak in 2008. This strain showed 98.9% sequence identity to a strain isolated in Canada in the same year.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: From May 2015 to March 2016, an outbreak due to Listeria monocytogenes serotype 1/2a and clinical pulsotype never previously isolated in Europe occurred in central Italy, involving 24 confirmed clinical cases. The article provides a description of the outbreak and the investigation carried out by a multidisciplinary network.
Methodology: Epidemiological and microbiological surveillance was conducted to confirm the outbreak and to detect the food vehicle of infection.
In 2012 a US multistate outbreak of listeriosis was linked to ricotta salata imported from Italy, made from pasteurized sheep's milk. Sampling activities were conducted in Italy to trace the source of Listeria monocytogenes contamination. The cheese that caused the outbreak was produced in a plant in Apulia that processed semi-finished cheeses supplied by five plants in Sardinia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study was to optimize a Real-Time PCR protocol for a rapid detection of Listeria monocytogenes in pork meat, using reduced volumes of primary selective enrichment broth and times of incubation to decrease the cost and time for analysis. Forty-five samples of pork meat were artificially contaminated with two different levels of L. monocytogenes (1-10 CFU per sample and 10-100 CFU per sample), homogenized in three different volumes of Half Fraser Broth (1:3; 1:5 and 1:10) and incubated at 30°C ± 1°C for 5h, 8h and 24h.
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