Bacillus cereus produces most emetic toxin at lower temperatures

Finlay, William J. J.; Logan, Niall A.; Sutherland, A.D.

doi:10.1046/j.1472-765x.2000.00835.x

Cited by 110 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Because the emetic toxin is preformed in food and is not inactivated by heat treatment (2,23), it is important to prevent B. cereus growth and its cereulide production during storage. This toxin production is closely linked to temperature (9) and is not strictly correlated with bacterial counts, as recently demonstrated by Delbrassinne et al (5; unpublished). The cereulide amounts produced by a B. cereus emetic strain inoculated at 10 6 CFU/g in cooked rice were higher at 23°C than at 30°C, whereas the opposite situation was observed for the cereulide producer counts.…”

Section: Case Reportmentioning

confidence: 58%

Sudden Death of a Young Adult Associated with Bacillus cereus Food Poisoning

et al. 2011

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A lethal intoxication case, which occurred in Brussels, Belgium, is described. A 20-year-old man died following the ingestion of pasta contaminated with Bacillus cereus. Emetic strains of B. cereus were isolated, and high levels of cereulide (14.8 g/g) were found in the spaghetti meal. CASE REPORTOn 1 October 2008, a 20-year-old man became sick after eating a meal of leftovers of spaghetti with tomato sauce, which had been prepared 5 days before and left in the kitchen at room temperature. After school, he warmed the spaghetti in the microwave oven. Immediately after eating, he left home for his sports activities, but he returned 30 min later because of headache, abdominal pain, and nausea. At his arrival, he vomited profusely for several hours and at midnight had two episodes of watery diarrhea. He did not receive any medication and drank only water. After midnight, he fell asleep. The next morning at 11:00 AM, his parents were worried because he did not get up. When they went to his room, they found him dead.Legal examination determined the time of death, presumably at 4:00 AM, approximately 10 h after ingestion of the suspected meal. An autopsy could not be performed until 5 days later. Macroscopically, brownish and moderately softened liver and ascites (550 ml of citrine liquid) were found. The heart was macroscopically normal. A total lysis of the pancreas was also found, but it could not be excluded that this finding was due to the autopsy delay.Microscopic findings were as follows: moderate centrolobular liver necrosis without inflammatory signs and discrete biliary stasis, significant vascular congestion of the lungs, probably due to acute cardiac insufficiency, significant necrosis from all layers of colon mucosa and submucosa alternating with betterpreserved zones, and mixed intestinal flora but no evidence of invasive bacterial lesions. Significant lysis of the adrenal glands was also reported. The exact cause of death could not be determined by the autopsy because the interpretation of findings was very difficult due to the autopsy delay.Five fecal swabs and two feces samples were taken postmortem, and samples were tested for the presence of Bacillus cereus by growth on mannitol egg yolk polymyxin (MYP) agar. B. cereus was found in only two of the five fecal swabs, and the strains isolated were named ISP321 and ISP322. No B. cereus was cultured from the feces samples. Pasta and tomato sauce samples, the leftovers of the dinner, were also sent for analysis to the National Reference Laboratory for Food-borne Outbreaks (NRLFBO). For enumeration of B. cereus in food samples, the ISO 7932 method (16) was used. Significant B. cereus counts (9.5 ϫ 10 7 CFU/g) were found in the pasta, while B. cereus was absent in the tomato sauce. The strain isolated from the pasta meal was named ISP303.PCR assays that detect the presence of toxin genes were applied to DNA from the pasta isolate (ISP303) and the two human isolates (ISP321 and ISP322), and the results are presented in Table 1. The presence of genes encoding ...

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Section: Case Reportmentioning

confidence: 58%

Sudden Death of a Young Adult Associated with Bacillus cereus Food Poisoning

et al. 2011

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“…1). Finlay et al (2000) determined that the lower limit for growth of 7 tested emetic strains was 12 °C andJohnson et al, 1982 andJohnson et al, 1983 also observed a lower germination of spores of emetic strains (only three tested) in a range of temperatures and media in comparison to diarrheal strains. cereus strains.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Emetic toxin-producing strains of Bacillus cereus show distinct characteristics within the Bacillus cereus group

Carlin

Fricker

Pielaat

et al. 2006

International Journal of Food Microbiology

146

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One hundred representative strains of Bacillus cereus were selected from a total collection of 372 B. cereus strains using two typing methods (RAPD and FT-IR) to investigate if emetic toxin-producing hazardous B. cereus strains possess characteristic growth and heat resistance profiles. The strains were classified into three groups: emetic toxin (cereulide)-producing strains (n = 17), strains connected to diarrheal foodborne outbreaks (n = 40) and food-environment strains (n = 43), these latter not producing the emetic toxin. Our study revealed a shift in growth limits towards higher temperatures for the emetic strains, regardless of their origin. None of the emetic toxin-producing strains were able to grow below 10 °C. In contrast, 11% (9 food-environment strains) out of the 83 non-emetic toxin-producing strains were able to grow at 4 °C and 49% at 7 °C (28 diarrheal and 13 food-environment strains). non-emetic toxin-producing strains. All emetic toxin-producing strains were able to grow at 48 °C, but only 39% (16 diarrheal and 16 food-environment strains) of the non-emetic toxinproducing strains grew at this temperature. Spores from the emetic toxin-producing strains showed, on average, a higher heat resistance at 90 °C and a lower germination, particularly at 7 °C, than spores from the other strains. No difference between the three groups in their growth kinetics at 24 °C, 37 °C, and pH 5.0, 7.0, and 8.0 was observed. Our survey shows that emetic toxin-producing strains of B. cereus have distinct characteristics, which could have important implication for the risk assessment of the emetic type of B. cereus caused food poisoning. For instance, emetic strains still represent a special risk in heat-processed foods or preheated foods that are kept warm (in restaurants and cafeterias), but should not pose a risk in refrigerated foods.

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“…Because the emetic toxin is preformed in the food and not inactivated by heat treatment (7) it is important to prevent growth and the production of cereulide during storage. Some B. cereus strains are known to be psychrotrophic and to have the highest emetic toxin production between 12-and 15°C (3). In this case, the temperature of the fridge where the pasta salad was stored was 14°C.…”

Section: Fig 1 Cluster Analysis Of the (Gtg)mentioning

confidence: 99%