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Collaborative Project: Inactivation of coxiella burnetii by short time heating of milk - subproject 2 (CoxiellaHTST)
Project
Project code: 2819105515
Contract period: 01.06.2016
- 30.06.2019
Budget: 222,876 Euro
Purpose of research: Experimental development
Coxiella burnetii is a Gram negative, obligate intracellular bacterium causing acute and chronical Q-fever of humans. Reservoir of this organism are ruminants and vectors for transmission are mainly amniotic fluid, afterbirth including placenta, but also milk. The seroprevalence for C. burnetii in cattle herds can be up to 79 %. In dairy cattle main manifestation of infection often is the mammary gland leading of a shedding of the organism in milk of several months. Conditions for pasteurization in the past were implemented basing on the results of many heating trials performed in the 1950s and 1960s. Today in the Codex Alimentarius it is fixed, that pasteurization must lead to a 5 log reduction of C. burnetii (99.999 %). Regarding this background it makes sense to test whether these requirements are still state of the art regarding application of modern heating technology and detection methods for survivors. A lower than the prescribed temperature for high temperature short time treatment of milk (72 °C) would contribute to saving of energy (improvement of the CO2 footprint). In addition, this would lead to a more 'natural” product. Particularly for cheesemaking a lowered heating temperature is of economical relevance. A reduced thermal exposure of proteins would lead to an enhanced cheese yield. So objective of the project is to generate kinetic data for the inactivation of C. burnetii during high temperature short time treatment of milk and to determine the molecular basis of its heat resistance. Workplan with workpackages: 1. Production of appropriate test organisms, 2. Pasteurisation of milk which has been contaminated with C. burnetii RSA 439 before, 3. Determination of heat resistent C. burnetii isolates, 4. Inactivation of C. burnetii by short-term heating, 5. Mechanisms of heat resistence, 6. Analysis of results and outcome, preparation of the final report and of publications.
Section overview
Subjects
- Animal health
- Food Processing
Framework programme
Funding programme
Excutive institution
FLI - Institute for Bacterial Infections and Zoonoses (FLI-IBIZ)