Bacillus cereus: public health burden associated with ready-to-eat foods in Himachal Pradesh, India

• Published in: Journal of food science and technology Vol. 57; no. 6; pp. 2293 - 2302
• Main Authors: Rana, Neha, Panda, Ashok Kumar, Pathak, Nina, Gupta, Tania, Thakur, Sidharath Dev
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi Springer India 01.06.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Amoxicillin; Ampicillin; Antibiotics; Antimicrobial agents; Antimicrobial resistance; Bacillus cereus; Beverages; Cefixime; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Chemistry/Food Science; Enterotoxins; Food; Food Science; Genes; Meat; Meat products; Milk; Milk products; Multidrug resistance; NHE gene; Nutrition; Original; Original Article; Penicillin; Polymerase chain reaction; Public health; Soups; Water analysis; Water sampling; Enterotoxins; Antimicrobial susceptibility; complex; cytK; nhe complex; hlb complex
• ISSN: 0022-1155; 0975-8402
• DOI: 10.1007/s13197-020-04267-y

The study determined incidence, enterotoxigenecity and antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of Bacillus cereus isolated from ready-to-eat (RTE) milk products (n = 80), RTE meat products (n = 40), beverages (n = 40) and water samples (n = 60, from food preparing and serving outlets/restaurants) collected from eight different tourist places of Himachal Pradesh. 11.4% (25/220) samples were contaminated with Bacillus and isolates were identified as B. cereus (76.0%, n = 19), B. alvei (12.0%, n = 3) , B. polymyxa (8.0%, n = 2) and B. firmus (4.0%, n = 1) by conventional and molecular methods. B. cereus incidence was highest in cheese based foods (25.0%) followed by vegetable soups (16.7%), khoa based foods (14.0%), milk based beverages (10.5%), paneer based foods (8.6%), cream based foods (8.3%) and water (8.3%) samples. Multiplex polymerase chain reaction detected enterotoxigenic genes only in B. cereus isolates. nhe complex (encoding non-haemolytic enterotoxins, ABC) genes were detected only in B. cereus isolates. 57.6% (11/19), 36.8% (7/19) and 5.3% (1/19) harboured all three ( nheA , nheB, nheC ), two ( nheB, nheC ) and one ( nheC ) nhe gene, respectively. Among hbl complex genes (encoding haemolytic enterotoxins CAD), only hblC (36.8%, 7/19) was detected. Incidence B. cereus cytK (encoding cytotoxin enterotoxin) was 52.6% (10/19). Each B. cereus isolate harboured two or more enterotoxigenic genes. Seven isolates had at least one gene from haemolytic and non-haemolytic complexes along with cytK . High levels (> 50%) of antimicrobial resistance were recorded for penicillin, amoxicillin, ampicillin cefixime and ceftazidine in tested B. cereus isolates. Two isolates were identified as multidrug resistant isolates with resistance to ≥ 3 antibiotic classes.