Strategies and perspectives of developing anti-biofilm materials for improved food safety

Yue Ma; Muhammad Zohaib Aslam; Mengjie Wu; Nitin Nitin; Gang Sun

doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2022.111543

Strategies and perspectives of developing anti-biofilm materials for improved food safety

Food Res Int. 2022 Sep:159:111543. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2022.111543. Epub 2022 Jun 30.

Authors

Yue Ma¹, Muhammad Zohaib Aslam², Mengjie Wu², Nitin Nitin³, Gang Sun⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA; School of Health Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China. Electronic address: dhuma@ucdavis.edu.
² School of Health Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China.
³ Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA; Department of Food Science and Technology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. Electronic address: nnitin@ucdavis.edu.
⁴ Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. Electronic address: gysun@ucdavis.edu.

PMID: 35940753
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodres.2022.111543

Abstract

Foodborne diseases caused by ingesting pathogen-contaminated foods have become a significant global challenge afflicting public health. A report from the National Institute of Health found that around 80% of microbial infections were related to the generation of microbial biofilms on food-contact surfaces. Therefore, developing a universally applicable food-contact surface with an effective antibiofilm function is urgently needed. However, many antibiofilm strategies are designed for marine and medical industries, which are not fully applicable to the food area. Therefore, in this review, a comprehensive overview of the reported antibiofilm strategies originally designed for various applications is presented. According to their working mechanisms, these antibiofilm strategies were divided into "attack", "defense", and a combination of both. In addition, definitions, antibiofilm mechanisms, features, inherent limitations, and suitable application scenarios of typical antibiofilm strategies were systematically summarized, respectively, which could provide some underlying principles and perspectives to design food-contact surfaces with desirable antibiofilm functions in the future.

Keywords: Anti-biofilm; Antifouling; Antimicrobial; Biocidal; DLVO theory; Food safety; Hydrophilic; Hydrophobic.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Biofilms*
Food Safety*