MEATing POINT Magazine: #27 / 2019

RESEARCH
| MPM
that limit the shelf life of a given
product. In future, samples taken
from the production line will be
able to indicate whether these
bacterial species originate from a
specific point of contamination in
the production chain, or whether
the bacteria have been present in
the raw material right from the
start. If the bacteria are present
in the equipment, additional or
specialised cleaning can reduce
accumulation of the bacteria, thus
preventing potential contamination
of the products.
No Two Production
Environments are Alike
During process control, 16S
sequencing can be used to
reveal differences in the bacterial
composition in products, production
facilities or equipment, at different
time points during a production
period or in physically separate
production areas. The Danish
Technological Institute has compared
the bacterial composition in products
produced in the morning and in
the afternoon at two different
companies. The investigation
showed that the products from
one of the companies had a
statistically different bacterial
composition, depending on whether
the products were produced in the
morning or in the afternoon. At the
other company, the products had
the same bacterial composition in
the morning and in the afternoon.
It was therefore possible to
demonstrate that at one of the
companies there were factors that
had an impact on the bacterial
composition of the products during
a production day. Regular analyses
of the bacterial composition can
reveal a lot about a product. For
example, they can demonstrate
whether changes, such as, work
shifts, seasonal effect, the place
of origin of the raw material and
changes in processes and cleaning
procedures, have an impact on
the bacterial composition within
the production environment and
products. Therefore impacting on
the quality, including the shelf
life, of the product.
Perspectives and
Challenges
At the Danish Technological Institute,
both 2nd generation (Illumina) and
3rd generation (Oxford Nanopore)
sequencing technologies are
used in R&D projects to identify
the bacterial composition in
products, production equipment
and production environments.
Sequencing with Oxford Nanopore
is the latest technology in DNA
sequencing. The instrument called
‘Minion’ is not much larger than
a mobile phone. Using Minion,
sequencing and analysis can be
performed in real-time, making
it possible to conduct sequencing
on site rather than having to
send the samples to a state-ofthe-art
sequencing laboratory.
Therefore, it will be possible to
obtain the sequencing results in
a matter of hours. However, there
is still the challenge of having to
pre-process the samples before
they can be sequenced, and this
takes time. The bacterial DNA
must first be extracted so that it
is representative of the sample. It
must also be extracted in large,
high quality quantities to allow
it can be measured accurately.
About the authors:
Steffen Lynge Jørgensen,
PhD, Consultant,
Danish Technological Institute
Tomas Jakobsen,
PhD, Senior Consultant,
Danish Technological Institute
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