Impact of Bacterial Injury and Repair in Food Microbiology: its Past, Present and Future

Studies done during the past 25 years revealed that microorganisms present in semipreserved foods can be injured by sublethal treatments. The injured cells, irrespective of differences in sublethal treatments, have similarities in their manifestation of injury and their repair. A simple resuscitation step incorporated into currently recommended isolation procedures would enable detection of these cells. In the future, microbial cell injury studies should be directed to include not only effective detection of index and pathogenic bacteria from foods, but also growth inhibition of spoilage microorganisms and preservation of lactic cultures.