title: Salmonella surveillance on fresh produce in retail in Turkey.
abstract: Although Turkey is one of the major producers of fruits and vegetables in the world, there has been no information available on the prevalence of pathogens in fresh produce. To fill this gap, we collected 503 fresh produce samples including tomato, parsley, iceberg lettuce, green-leaf lettuce and five different fresh pepper varieties (i.e., green, kapya, bell, mazamort and Charleston) from 3 major districts within 9 supermarkets and 3 bazaars in Ankara, Turkey to investigate the presence of Salmonella. Salmonella was detected in 0.8% (4/503) of samples by conventional culturing method with molecular confirmation conducted through polymerase chain reaction (PCR). For further characterization of isolates, serotyping, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, multi-locus sequence typing (MLST; aroC, thrA, purE, sucA, hisD, hemD and dnaN) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) were performed. Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serotypes Anatum, Charity, Enteritidis and Mikawasima were isolated from two parsley, one pepper and one lettuce samples, respectively. MLST resulted in 4 sequence types (STs) for each serotype, including one novel ST for serotype Mikawasima. Similarly, PFGE revealed four different XbaI PFGE patterns. The results of this survey, obtained by the most common subtyping methods (i.e. serotyping, MLST and PFGE) worldwide, contributes to the development of a national database in Turkey, which is essential for investigating the evolutionary pathways, geographical distribution and genetic diversity of Salmonella strains.
authors: Department of Food Engineering, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey.
authors: Elif
authors: E
authors: Gunel
authors: Department of Food Engineering, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey.
authors: Gozde
authors: G
authors: Polat Kilic
authors: Department of Food Engineering, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey.
authors: Ece
authors: E
authors: Bulut
authors: Department of Food Engineering, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey.
authors: Bora
authors: B
authors: Durul
authors: Department of Food Engineering, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey.
authors: Sinem
authors: S
authors: Acar
authors: Department of Food Engineering, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey.
authors: Hami
authors: H
authors: Alpas
authors: Department of Food Engineering, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey. Electronic address: ysoyer@metu.edu.tr.
authors: Yeşim
authors: Y
authors: Soyer
mesh_terms: D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D005516:Food Microbiology; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012475:Salmonella / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012480:Salmonella Infections / Q000517:prevention & control; D019779:Salmonella enterica / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D012703:Serotyping; D014421:Turkey; D014675:Vegetables / Q000382:microbiology*
keywords: Salmonella; fresh produce; multi-locus sequence typing; pulsed-field gel electrophoresis