MOLECULAR METHODOLOGY IN FOOD MICROBIOLOGY DIAGNOSTICS: TRENDS AND CURRENT CHALLENGES Rodríguez-Lázaro, D.

Foodborne diseases are among the most serious public health concerns worldwide. Consequently, the application of microbiological controls within the quality assessment programs in the food industry is a premise to minimize the risk of infection for the consumer. Classical microbiological methods involve, in general, the use of appropriate pre-enrichment and enrichment, isolation on selective media, and subsequent confirmation using morphological, biochemical and/or serological tests. They are laborious, time consuming and not always reliable. A number of alternative, rapid and sensitive molecular methods for the detection, identification and quantification of foodborne pathogens have been developed to overcome these drawbacks. However, until now, they have shown low practical implementation for monitoring and microbiological control. Amplification techniques have a number of advantages including improved speed, excellent detection limit, specificity, sensitivity and potential for quantification as well as easy automation. Major drawbacks are the cost of the analysis and the qualified personnel needed to carry out the experiments, plus the lack of standardisation of protocols approved by normalisation bodies. Moreover, the cost of reagents is decreasing and more qualified people are available to perform this kind of analysis. Efforts on standardisation and normalisation of these techniques are a key priority