Diversity of bacterial communities in French chicken cuts stored under modified atmosphere packaging.

Poultry meat, the second most consumed meat in France, is commercialized mainly as portions of chicken cuts with various quality labels, stored under various modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), with shelf-life ranging from 9 to 17 days. We used 16S rDNA pyrosequencing to describe microbiota of chicken legs. Ten samples representing a wide diversity of labels and MAP available on the market were collected from local supermarkets and stored at 4 °C. Microbiota were collected, total DNA was extracted, and V1-V3 fragment of 16S rRNA genes were amplified and sequenced. For data analysis several pipelines were compared. The Qiime pipeline was chosen to cluster reads and we used a database previously developed for a meat and fish microbial ecology study. Variability between samples was observed and a listing of bacteria present on chicken meat was established. The structure of the bacterial communities were compared with traditional cultural methods and validated with quantitative real time PCR. Brochothrix thermosphacta, Pseudomonas sp., and Carnobacterium sp. were dominant and the nature of the gas used for packaging influenced the relative abundance of each suggesting a MAP gas composition dependent competition between these species. We also noticed that slaughterhouse environment may influence the nature of the contaminants.

Bacterial Contaminants of Poultry Meat: Sources, Species, and Dynamics.

With the constant increase in poultry meat consumption worldwide and the large variety of poultry meat products and consumer demand, ensuring the microbial safety of poultry carcasses and cuts is essential. In the present review, we address the bacterial contamination of poultry meat from the slaughtering steps to the use-by-date of the products. The different contamination sources are identified. The contaminants occurring in poultry meat cuts and their behavior toward sanitizing treatments or various storage conditions are discussed. A list of the main pathogenic bacteria of concern for the consumer and those responsible for spoilage and waste of poultry meat is established.

A method to isolate bacterial communities and characterize ecosystems from food products: Validation and utilization in as a reproducible chicken meat model.

Influenced by production and storage processes and by seasonal changes the diversity of meat products microbiota can be very variable. Because microbiotas influence meat quality and safety, characterizing and understanding their dynamics during processing and storage is important for proposing innovative and efficient storage conditions. Challenge tests are usually performed using meat from the same batch, inoculated at high levels with one or few strains. Such experiments do not reflect the true microbial situation, and the global ecosystem is not taken into account. Our purpose was to constitute live stocks of chicken meat microbiotas to create standard and reproducible ecosystems. We searched for the best method to collect contaminating bacterial communities from chicken cuts to store as frozen aliquots. We tested several methods to extract DNA of these stored communities for subsequent PCR amplification. We determined the best moment to collect bacteria in sufficient amounts during the product shelf life. Results showed that the rinsing method associated to the use of Mobio DNA extraction kit was the most reliable method to collect bacteria and obtain DNA for subsequent PCR amplification. Then, 23 different chicken meat microbiotas were collected using this procedure. Microbiota aliquots were stored at -80°C without important loss of viability. Their characterization by cultural methods confirmed the large variability (richness and abundance) of bacterial communities present on chicken cuts. Four of these bacterial communities were used to estimate their ability to regrow on meat matrices. Challenge tests performed on sterile matrices showed that these microbiotas were successfully inoculated and could overgrow the natural microbiota of chicken meat. They can therefore be used for performing reproducible challenge tests mimicking a true meat ecosystem and enabling the possibility to test the influence of various processing or storage conditions on complex meat matrices.