Models of the behaviour of (thermally stressed) microbial spores in foods: tools to study mechanisms of damage and repair.

The 'Omics' revolution has brought a wealth of new mechanistic insights in many fields of biology. It offers options to base predictions of microbial behaviour on mechanistic insight. As the cellular mechanisms involved often turn out to be highly intertwined it is crucial that model development aims at identifying the level of complexity that is relevant to work at. For the prediction of microbiologically stable foods insight in the behaviour of bacterial spore formers is crucial. Their chances of germination and likelihood of outgrowth are major food stability indicators, as well as the transition from outgrowth to first cell division and vegetative growth. Current available technology to assess these parameters in a time-resolved manner at the single spore level will be discussed. Tools to study molecular processes operative in heat induced damage will be highlighted.