Raw Fish Ceviche Bacterial Diversity. food metagenome

Ceviche is a traditional dish made using raw fish meat marinated few hours in lime juice and do not have any heat cooking step throughout its preparation process. Although the use of organic acids as antibacterial agents is well known, recent research indicate that lime juice actually can reduce the risk of Vibrio parahemolyticus infections but it is not effective against other potential pathogens such as Salmonella enterica.Despite the fact that fresh fish meat is safe, exposed organs including skin, gills, and guts represent a potential source of bacterial contamination for this kind of foods. Moreover, handling, transportation and mixing of fish marinated meat with other ingredients from vegetable sources could also alter significantly the structure of microbial communities present in Ceviche and increase the risk of infections due consumption of this kind of products. Currently, classic microbiology techniques allow detection of some foodborne pathogens but those techniques are limited to detect only cultivable bacteria. In this study, we characterized the bacterial communities present in raw fish ceviche through a metagenomics approach, performing massive sequencing of the bacterial 16S V3-V4 region.