Effects of indigenous microbiota in fresh produce on Salmonella survival and inactivation by oregano essential oil vapor.

Authors

Zejia Lin, Menglu Chen, Yinuo Miao, Dan Li

Published in

Food microbiology. Volume 142. Pages 105325. Epub Oct 09, 2026.

Abstract

Fresh produce carries diverse background microbiota, yet antimicrobial studies often use disinfected or microbiologically simplified models. In a mapping of 151 studies from Web of Science Core Collection records published from 2022 to 2025, 64.2% used natural or untreated matrices and 35.8% used disinfected matrices, suggesting that experimental design may affect interpretation of pathogen persistence and intervention efficacy. We therefore compared Salmonella survival on lettuce and mung bean sprouts at 7 °C under background microbiota-retained (BG+) and reduced-background (BG-) conditions, with or without oregano essential oil vapor. On lettuce, Salmonella counts were consistently higher in BG- than in BG + samples (P < 0.05), whereas retail bean sprouts showed no BG-dependent difference (P > 0.05). To examine the change of microbiota during sprout development, Salmonella was inoculated into mung bean seeds and monitored during germination. By day 6, Salmonella reached 7.4 ± 0.4 log CFU/g in BG- sprouts but only 6.2 ± 0.5 log CFU/g in BG + sprouts (P < 0.05). During subsequent refrigerated storage, Salmonella counts increased in BG + sprouts but declined in BG- sprouts. Oregano essential oil vapor produced reductions of 0.9 ± 0.4 and 2.6 ± 0.4 log CFU/g in BG+ and BG- sprouts, respectively (P < 0.05). Full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing identified Pantoea as the most abundant genus in mature sprouts. Its relative-abundance pattern, together with PICRUSt2-predicted analysis, suggested a possible competition with Salmonella. Overall, background microbiota influence Salmonella behavior in a context- and stage-dependent manner and should be considered when evaluating fresh produce safety interventions.

PMID:
42901677
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 21 Oct 2026.

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