Molecular approaches for detection and identification of foodborne pathogens

Foodborne pathogens comprise microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria and parasites that can betransmitted by food and affect public health worldwide. the most common viruses transmitted viafood are hepatitis a virus and norwalk-like caliciviruses. also, the most common bacteria involvedin foodborne illnesses are campylobacter jejuni, clostridium perfringens, salmonella spp,escherichia coli o157:h7; and the most important parasites that can cause these conditions aregiardia duodenalis, cryptosporidium parvum, cyclospora cayetanensis, toxoplasma gondii,trichinella spiralis, taenia saginata and/or solium, entamoeba histolytica, anisakis spp. anddiphyllobothrium spp. because of their eventual small number in the sample, their detection andidentification is not always easy. on the other hand, conventional methods like cultures are almostlabor intensive, time consuming and costly. recently, molecular techniques have been developedfor rapid, sensitive and specific identification. the most common molecular methods arepolymerase chain reaction (pcr)-based techniques. in this article, the sensitive and specificmolecular tests for routine detection and identification of foodborne pathogens are reviewed.