Strain and serovar variants of Salmonella enterica exhibit diverse tolerance to food chain-related stress

We assessed the variation in survival in stresses of genotypically diverse isolates of Salmonella enterica to identify genotypes with potential elevated risk to sub-optimal processing or cooking. Sub-lethal heat treatment, survival in desiccated conditions and growth in the presence of NaCl or organic acids were investigated. An understanding of the molecular basis of phenotypic variation in response to stress has the potential to improve process validation during food challenge tests, improve processing, and result in more reliable risk assessments in the food industry.