Conveyor surfaces-swine slaughterhouse Raw sequence reads

Resistance to disinfection and persistence on working surfaces are important attributes allowing bacterial pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes to survive and contaminate food products. Persistence is a complex phenomenon involving interactions between many bacteria within biofilm and is modulated by in situ characteristics. Using molecular tools for characterization of microbial communities may allow to appreciate the relative contribution of different bacteria to this phenomenon as well as to better understand the contamination risk by L. monocytogenes. In this work we aimed to describe in silico the microbiota identified in swine slaughterhouse after sanitation procedures through four sampling visits using a 16S RNA sequencing of DNA extracted from samples collected from meat conveyor belt surfaces and to study the co-occurrence between L.monocytogenes and other bacteria. From the background microbiota, a total of twenty-five genera were found to interact with Listeria spp. The correlation analyses showed a negative interaction between these microbiota suggesting a possible Listeria growth inhibition or an absence of a shared habitat. Through these results, a complete scenario of interactions of Listeria, was established which may contribute in identifying avenues that could prevent the growth and persistence of L. monocytogenes on food processing surfaces.