Development of a novel reagent for release of biofilm-embedded microbes from surfaces for detection by monitoring techniques

Current methods for detection of microbial contaminants on food industry surfaces use simpleswabbing/wiping to extract microbes for analysis. This removes easily transferable microbes butfails to extract microbes living in biofilms which reduces detection sensitivity and may mask thetrue degree of contamination. This increases the risk of food-borne outbreaks threatening humanhealth and can result in costly recalls for food providers. The proposed project will developBioXpose an innovative product that will increase the extraction of viable microbes from biofilmson surfaces to achieve improved detection of contamination on food processing surfaces.ThePhase I results provided several candidate enzyme cocktails (ECs) with high activity against amulti-species biofilm model. The Phase II project further develop the top ECs to reach a market- ready product BioXpose and will consist of three objectives.In Technical Objective 1refinements to the biofilm assay and bacterial release assay will be instituted and top ECs will bemore comprehensively tested. For Technical Objective 2 lead ECs will be converted into productready formulations that achieves the microbe release performance desired in the final product. InTechnical Objective 3 the top EC will be tested against a more advanced multi-species biofilmusing 2 downstream detection assays to compare BioXpose-treated vs controls by an independentcontract lab.With the successful development of BioXpose food industry surface contamination monitoring willachieve improved sensitivity accuracy and reliability through the use of BioXpose which willprovide better protection from food-borne illnesses and reduce product recalls.