Indications of biopesticidal Bacillus thuringiensis strains in bell pepper and tomato

Members of the Bacillus cereus group are common contaminants of vegetables. One potential source of contamination is the application of B. thuringiensis based biopesticides. Although evidence of the presence of biopesticidal strains on food products is scarce, this information is essential for assessing potential risks associated with the application of these biopesticides. In order to contribute to knowledge about the presence of biopesticidal B. thuringiensis strains in foodstuffs, we investigated the occurrence of B. thuringiensis on tomatoes and bell pepper. We analyzed 99 samples of fresh bell pepper for B. cereus group members, while 426 samples of tomatoes were tested by the competent food control laboratories of the federal states in Germany. The isolates recovered from these samples were further characterized in terms of their capability to produce parasporal crystals as well as enterotoxins. A possible correlation between the B. thuringiensis isolates and biopesticidal strains was investigated by multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and whole genome Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (wgSNP) analyses. The prevalence of B. cereus group members was 41% for bell pepper and 28% for tomato samples. Isolates recovered from these samples were dominated by B. thuringiensis (93% and 99%, respectively). All B. thuringiensis isolates carried the enterotoxin genes nheA, hblD and cytK-2. In a subset of 83 B. thuringiensis isolates analyzed by MLST, 99% of the isolates matched the sequence types (ST) 8 and 15, which are also shared by the biopesticidal strains B. thuringiensis kurstaki ABTS-351 and B. thuringiensis aizawai ABTS-1857. Of the 82 isolates assigned to ST 8 or ST 15, a selection of 42 isolates was further characterized by wgSNP analysis. Of these, seven isolates differed from strain ABTS-351 by ≤4 core SNPs and 18 isolates differed from strain ABTS-1857 by ≤2 core SNPs, indicating a relationship of these isolates with the respective biopesticidal strain. These isolates originated from samples with maximum colony counts of 5.3 × 10³ cfu/g for bell pepper and 1.0 × 10⁵ cfu/g for tomatoes.