The application and potential risks of bacteriophages for the food safety

Abstract:

In recent years, foodborne disease often occurred, even increased in some countries. Bacteriophages were originally used to treat bacterial diseases. Now people have realized that the application prospects of bacteriophages in the food industry are very wide. Bacteriophages have been used as the food additive to control food pathogens. The characteristics of bacteriophages illustrate that bacteriophages are the ideal tool to ensure food safety, because bacteriophages not only are safe and reliable, but also have strict host specificity which means bacteriophages don’t kill the fermentation strains in the process of controlling foodborne pathogens. Bacteriophages can be used in all aspects of food production to kill or inhibit pathogenic bacteria, such as raw materials collection, production, storage and others. In this review, we discuss the prospects and potential risks of bacteriophages in controlling foodborne pathogens.