Antibiofilm Efficacy of Quercetin against <em>Vibrio parahaemolyticus</em> Biofilm on Food-Contact Surfaces in the Food Industry

Abstract

Vibrio parahaemolyticus, one of the most common foodborne pathogenic bacteria that forms biofilms, is a persistent source of concern for the food industry. The food production chain employs a variety of methods to control biofilms, although none are completely successful. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of quercetin as a food additive in reducing V. parahaemolyticus biofilm formation on stainless-steel coupons (SS) and hand gloves (HG) as well as testing its antimicrobial activities. With a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 220 µg/mL, the tested quercetin exhibited the lowest bactericidal action without visible growth. In contrast, during various experiments in this work, the inhibitory efficacy of quercetin at sub-MICs levels (1/2, 1/4, and 1/8 MIC) against V. parahaemolyticus was examined. Control group was not added with quercetin. With increasing quercetin concentration, swarming and swimming motility, biofilm formation, and expression levels of target genes linked to flagellar motility (flaA, flgL), biofilm formation (vp0952, vp0962), virulence (VopQ, vp0450), and quorum-sensing (aphA, luxS) were all dramatically suppressed. Quercetin (0–110 μg/mL) was investigated on SS and HG surfaces, the inhibitory effect were 0.10–2.17 and 0.26–2.31 log CFU/cm2, respectively (p V. parahaemolyticus biofilms. These results indicate that throughout the entire food production chain, bacterial targets are of interest for biofilm reduction with alternative natural food agents in the seafood industry.

Keywords

• <i>Vibrio parahaemolyticus</i>
• quercetin
• biofilm
• stainless steel
• hand gloves
• gene expression