Tracking the blue: MLST and phenotypic characterisation of Pseudomonas fluorescens strains isolated from food

The Pseudomonas fluorescens group consists of species involved in food contamination and spoilage. The interest on P. fluorescens increased after the \u201cblue mozzarella\u201d events occurred in Italy in 2010. 133 P. fluorescens strains isolated from food were characterised by both phenotypic and molecular approaches. In particular, a Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) scheme was developed and applied to characterise them at strain level. The aim of the present work was to apply the MLST scheme for tracking P. fluorescens during the production chain and to discriminate the strains producing the blue pigment