Pseudomonas fluorescens: a potential food spoiler and challenges and advances in its detection

Purpose This review focuses on the spoilage strategies used by the Pseudomonas fluorescens, and in addition, it also discusses various diagnostic approaches used for its identification in food items. Some challenges faced and advances in the detection of P. fluorescens and also discussed in this review. Methods An extensive literature search was performed with published work and data was analyzed in detail to meet the requirements of the objectives. Results P. fluorescens are unicellular rods, with long straight or curved axis, but not helical, motility by one or more polar flagella, Gram-negative, non-spores former, stalks, or sheaths. P. fluorescens is represented by seven biotypes denoted by the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The microbe shows wide choice of growth temperature and causes contamination and spoilage in ordinary and refrigerated food items by its enzymes and pigment production. The biofilm formation by P. fluorescens poses another serious threat to the food industries. Conclusion Molecular identification of P. fluorescens is generally done by 16S rRNA, intergenic spacer (ITS1) utilizing traditional polymerase chain reactions (PCR). Nowadays, qPCR and multiplex PCR are largely utilized in identification of P. fluorescens based on AprX gene (extracellular caseinolytic metalloprotease) in the milk and meat spoilage strains. The available methods still show some disadvantages with accuracy and specificity of detection. Rapid detection of P. fluorescens in food samples is the need of hour to improve the detection efficiency.