Public Health Importance of Preventive Measures for <i>Salmonella</i> Tennessee and <i>Salmonella</i> Typhimurium Strain LT2 Biofilms

Abstract

Various serovars of Salmonella had been the subject of research for over 150 years; nonetheless, the bacterium has remained an important pathogen of public health concern to date. The tremendous ability of Salmonella to form biofilms on biotic and abiotic surfaces is an important underlying reason for the prevalence of this opportunistic pathogen in healthcare, manufacturing, and the food chain. The current study illustrates that using very common industrial antimicrobial treatments at the highest concentrations suggested by the manufacturers is only efficacious against planktonic and one-day mature biofilms of the pathogen while exhibiting a lack of efficacy for complete removal of bacterial biofilms formed for longer than 2 days. This exhibits the importance of preventive measures against Salmonella biofilm formation in healthcare and manufacturing facilities, schools, nursing homes, and domestic environments. Additionally, our study illustrates the importance of including both planktonic and sessile cells of the pathogen in microbiology validation studies, especially for niche and hard-to-reach surfaces. The current study additionally investigated the suitability of an avirulent strain of the pathogen as a surrogate for pathogenic Salmonella serovars for public health microbiology validation studies when the use of virulent strains is not economically feasible or not possible due to safety concerns.

Keywords

• bacterial biofilms
• nontyphoidal <i>Salmonella</i> serovars
• avirulent <i>Salmonella</i>