Tracking Antimicrobial Resistant from Pigs on Farm to Pork at Slaughter.

Antimicrobial-resistant bacteria might be transferred via the foodchain. However, that risk is rarely tracked along different production steps, e.g.

Spread of antimicrobial resistance genes via pig manure from organic and conventional farms in the presence or absence of antibiotic use.

Aims: Antibiotic-resistant bacteria affect human and animal health. Hence, their environmental spread represents a potential hazard for mankind. Livestock farming is suspected to be a key factor for spreading antibiotic resistance; consumers expect organic farming to imply less environmental health risk.

Probiotic Bacillus cereus Strains, a Potential Risk for Public Health in China.

Bacillus cereus is an important cause of foodborne infectious disease and food poisoning. However, B. cereus has also been used as a probiotic in human medicine and livestock production, with low standards of safety assessment.

Specific amplification of bacterial DNA by optimized so-called universal bacterial primers in samples rich of plant DNA.

Universal primers targeting the bacterial 16S-rRNA-gene allow quantification of the total bacterial load in variable sample types by qPCR. However, many universal primer pairs also amplify DNA of plants or even of archaea and other eukaryotic cells. By using these primers, the total bacterial load might be misevaluated, whenever samples contain high amounts of non-target DNA.