Journal
FOODS
Volume 10, Issue 8, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/foods10081820
Keywords
organic food; irrigation water; viral pathogens; food safety; next-generation sequencing; target enrichment sequencing; amplicon deep sequencing; human papillomavirus; norovirus; vertebrate viruses
Categories
Funding
- Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) [AGL2017-86797-C2-1-R]
- Centre of Excellence Severo Ochoa (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN)) [CEX2018-000794-S]
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Fresh fruits and vegetables are vulnerable to microbial contamination and irrigation water quality is crucial. The study found frequent viral contamination in fresh produce, particularly Norovirus and Human Papillomavirus. The presence of these viruses in both fresh produce and irrigation water implies that irrigation water might be the main source of viral pathogens in food samples.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are susceptible to microbial contamination at every stage of the food production chain, and as a potential source of pathogens, irrigation water quality is a critical factor. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques have been flourishing and expanding to a wide variety of fields. However, their application in food safety remains insufficiently explored, and their sensitivity requires improvement. In this study, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays showed low but frequent contamination of common circulating viral pathogens, which were found in 46.9% of samples of fresh produce: 6/12 lettuce samples, 4/12 strawberries samples, and 5/8 parsley samples. Furthermore, the application of two different NGS approaches, target enrichment sequencing (TES) for detecting viruses that infect vertebrates and amplicon deep sequencing (ADS), revealed a high diversity of viral pathogens, especially Norovirus (NoV) and Human Papillomavirus (HPV), in fresh produce and irrigation water. All NoV and HPV types found in fresh fruit and vegetable samples were also detected in irrigation water sources, indicating that these viruses are common circulating pathogens in the population and that irrigation water may be the most probable source of viral pathogens in food samples.
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