Dell'olmo, Eliana (2020) Host Defence Peptides (HDPs) as novel biopreservatives in food industry applications. [Tesi di dottorato]

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Abstract

Today, food loss and waste are a major concern worldwide, since approximately one-third of all the food produced for human consumption is either lost or wasted. Several reasons have been identified for this phenomenon. Among these, food spoilage associated to microbial contamination represents the main factor affecting organoleptic product quality (aspect, texture, taste, and aroma). The emergence of antibiotic resistance (ABR) along the food chain is a major global public health issue, with several studies reporting the colonization and/or the infection of food animals and products by antibiotic-resistant strains. This phenomenon along with the increasing concerns about the safety of chemical preservatives, make the development of novel and natural food preservatives urgent. In this scenario, naturally occurring Host Defence Peptides (HDPs) have attracted increasing importance. HDPs are small molecules, widespread in all the living organisms endowed with several activities, such as antimicrobial, anti-biofilm, antifungal and immunomodulatory. The main aim of this PhD project has been the evaluation of the applicability of novel HDPs, identified in the human Apolipoprotein B, as novel biopreservatives for food industry applications. We demonstrated that ApoB derived peptides are endowed with significant antimicrobial and anti-biofilm activity towards two Salmonella strains, bacteria mainly responsible for food contamination. Moreover, peptides ability to act as antifungal agents has been investigated towards Candida and Aspergillus strains and very promising results have been obtained. In addition, biocompatibility and side effects of ApoB derived peptides have been investigated to assess their safety upon human consumption. Finally, novel coating solutions, based on chitosan functionalized with ApoB derived peptides, have been designed and it has been evaluated their ability to prevent bacterial attachment on different surfaces; indeed, obtained coating solutions have been found to be capable to prevent biofilm attachment and to decrease microbial load in chicken meat samples during storage at 4 °C. The overall obtained results highlight the applicability of ApoB derived peptides as novel agents to be employed in food industry to prevent and control food spoilage.

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