Quercetin mediated antimicrobial photodynamic treatment using blue light on O157:H7 and .

Interest in using an antimicrobial photodynamic treatment (aPDT) for the microbial decontamination of food has been growing. In this study, quercetin, a substance found ubiquitously in plants, was used as a novel exogenous photosensitizer with 405 nm blue light (BL) for the aPDT on foodborne pathogens, and the inactivation mechanism was elucidated. The inactivation of O157:H7 and in PBS solution by the quercetin and BL combination treatment reached a log reduction of 6.2 and more than 7.55 at 80 J/cm (68 min 21 s), respectively. When EDTA was added to investigate the reason for different resistance between two bacteria, the effect of aPDT was enhanced against O157:H7 but not . This result indicated that the lipopolysaccharide of Gram-negative bacteria operated as a protective barrier. It was experimentally demonstrated that quercetin generated the superoxide anion and hydrogen peroxide as the reactive oxygen species that oxidize and inactivate cell components. The damage to the bacterial cell membrane by aPDT was evaluated by propidium iodide, where the membrane integrity significantly ( < 0.05) decreased from 40 J/cm compared to control. In addition, DNA integrity of bacteria was significantly ( < 0.05) more decreased after aPDT than BL treatment. The inactivation results could be applied in liquid food industries for decontamination of foodborne pathogens, and the mechanisms data was potentially utilized for further studies about aPDT using quercetin.