• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.761-765
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• 2008

Bacillus cereus causes two different types of food poisoning syndromes: diarrhea and emesis. The diarrheal syndrome is attributed to various enterotoxins, including nonhemolytic enterotoxin, hemolytic enterotoxin, and enterotoxin-T, whereas the emetic syndrome is caused by the dodecadepsipeptide toxin cereulide. A multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay was developed to rapidly detect and identify B. cereus strains. Three primer pairs specific to regions within genes encoding nonhemolytic enterotoxin (nheA), molecular chaperonin (groEL), and cereulide synthetase (ces) were used to identify and differentiate between the enterotoxin-producing and emetic toxin-producing B. cereus strains. The cereulide-producing emetic B. cereus showed 3 PCR products of 325, 405, and 685 bp for the groEL, ces, and nheA genes, respectively, whereas the enterotoxin-producing B. cereus showed 2 PCR products without a ces gene specific DNA fragment. Specific amplifications and differentiations by multiplex PCR assay were obtained using 62 B. cereus strains and 13 strains' of other bacterial species. The detection limit of this assay for enterotoxin-producing strain and emetic toxin-producing strain from pure cultures were $2.4{\times}10^1$ and $6.0{\times}10^2\;CFU/tube$, respectively. These results suggest that our multiplex PCR method may be useful for the rapid detection and differentiation of B. cereus strains in foods.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.42 no.10
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• pp.1690-1700
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• 2013

The objective of this study is to develop and validate predictive growth models for Bacillus cereus (diarrhea type) vegetative cells, spores and Staphylococcus aureus in preprocessed Namul (bracken and Chwinamul) and root vegetables (bellflower and burdock). For validation of model performance, growth data for S. aureus in preprocessed vegetables were collected at independent temperatures (18 and $30^{\circ}C$) not used in the model development. In addition, model performance of B. cereus (diarrhea type) in preprocessed vegetables was validated with an emetic type of B. cereus strain. In primary models, the specific growth rate (SGR) of the B. cereus spores was faster than that of the B. cereus vegetative cells, regardless of the kinds of vegetables at 24 and $35^{\circ}C$, while lag time (LT) of the B. cereus spores was longer than that of the B. cereus vegetative cells, except for burdock. The growth of B. cereus and S. aureus was not observed in bracken at temperatures lower than 13 and $8^{\circ}C$, respectively. The LT models for B. cereus (diarrhea type) in this study were suitable in predicting the growth of B. cereus (emetic type) on burdock and Chwinamul. On the other hand, SGR models for B. cereus (diarrhea type) were suitable for predicting the growth of B. cereus (emetic type) on all preprocessed vegetables. The developed models can be used to predict the risk of B. cereus and S. aureus in preprocessed Namul and root vegetables at the retail markets.