Bacterial community and proteome analysis of fresh-cut lettuce as affected by packaging.
With the growing demand of fresh-cut vegetables, a variety of packaging films are produced specifically to improve safety and quality of the fresh vegetables over the storage period. The aim of our work was to evaluate the influence of different packaging films on the quality of fresh-cut lettuce analyzing changes in bacterial community composition and modifications at the proteome level, by means of culture-dependent/culture-independent methods and differential gel electrophoresis combined with mass spectrometry analysis. Total viable counts indicated the presence of a highly variable and complex microbial flora, around a mean value of 6.26 log10 CFU g(-1). Analysis of terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism data indicated that bacterial communities changed with packaging films and time, showing differences in community composition and diversity indices between the commercially available package (F) and the new packages (A and C), in the first days after packaging. Also proteomic analysis revealed significant changes, involving proteins related to energy metabolism, photosynthesis, plant defense and oxidative stress processes, between F and A/C packages. In conclusion, microbiological and proteomic analysis have proved to be powerful tools to provide new insights into both the composition of leaf-associated bacterial communities and protein content of fresh-cut lettuce during the shelf-life storage process.
Sustainable Territorial and Production Systems Department, Biotechnologies and Agro-Industry Division, ENEA Casaccia Research Center, 00123, Rome, Italy.
Mariasole
M
Di Carli
Sustainable Territorial and Production Systems Department, Biotechnologies and Agro-Industry Division, ENEA Casaccia Research Center, 00123, Rome, Italy.
Patrizia
P
De Rossi
Sustainable Territorial and Production Systems Department, Biotechnologies and Agro-Industry Division, ENEA Casaccia Research Center, 00123, Rome, Italy.
Patrizia
P
Paganin
Sustainable Territorial and Production Systems Department, Biotechnologies and Agro-Industry Division, ENEA Casaccia Research Center, 00123, Rome, Italy.
Antonella
A
Del Fiore
Sustainable Territorial and Production Systems Department, Biotechnologies and Agro-Industry Division, ENEA Casaccia Research Center, 00123, Rome, Italy.
Francesca
F
Lecce
Sustainable Territorial and Production Systems Department, Biotechnologies and Agro-Industry Division, ENEA Casaccia Research Center, 00123, Rome, Italy.
Cristina
C
Capodicasa
Energy Technologies Department, Bioenergy, Biorefinery and Green Chemistry Division, ENEA Trisaia Research Center, 75026 Rotondella (MT), Italy.
Linda
L
Bianco
Energy Technologies Department, Bioenergy, Biorefinery and Green Chemistry Division, ENEA Trisaia Research Center, 75026 Rotondella (MT), Italy.
Gaetano
G
Perrotta
Biology Department, University of Florence, I-50019 Sesto F.no, Florence, Italy.
Alessio
A
Mengoni
Biology Department, University of Florence, I-50019 Sesto F.no, Florence, Italy.
Giovanni
G
Bacci
Sustainable Territorial and Production Systems Department, Biotechnologies and Agro-Industry Division, ENEA Casaccia Research Center, 00123, Rome, Italy.
Lorenza
L
Daroda
Sustainable Territorial and Production Systems Department, Biotechnologies and Agro-Industry Division, ENEA Casaccia Research Center, 00123, Rome, Italy.
Claudia
C
Dalmastri
Sustainable Territorial and Production Systems Department, Biotechnologies and Agro-Industry Division, ENEA Casaccia Research Center, 00123, Rome, Italy.
Marcello
M
Donini
Sustainable Territorial and Production Systems Department, Biotechnologies and Agro-Industry Division, ENEA Casaccia Research Center, 00123, Rome, Italy annamaria.bevivino@enea.it.
Annamaria
A
Bevivino
D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D058448:Biota; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D004586:Electrophoresis; D018857:Food Packaging; D023281:Genomics; D018545:Lactuca / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000382:microbiology*; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D008828:Microbiological Techniques; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D020543:Proteome / Q000032:analysis*; D040901:Proteomics
D020543:Proteome
bacterial community structure; fresh-cut lettuce; packaging; proteome analysis; shelf life