Effects of Tea Polyphenols Combined with Thermosonication on the Population of <i>Salmonella enterica</i> in Fresh-Cut Wax Gourd during Storage and Its ANFIS Survival Model

• Published in: Applied Sciences
• Main Authors: Yingjie Miao, Gaowei Hu, Huanting Huang, Yashi Li, Yongqian Fu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2023-04-01
• Subjects: <i>Salmonella</i>; wax gourd; ANFIS; thermosonication; tea polyphenols
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/13/8/5087

Fresh-cut vegetables are exposed to the risk of <i>Salmonella</i> spp. contamination. Effective sterilization methods and early warning systems play important roles in ensuring food safety of fresh-cut products. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of tea polyphenols (TP) combined with thermosonication (TS) treatment on inactivation of <i>Salmonella enterica</i> in fresh-cut wax gourd and to develop and estimate models using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) with different membership functions (MFs) for predicting <i>S. enterica</i> population during storage at 25, 10, and 4 °C, respectively. The results showed that both TP and TS treatment can effectively reduce the population of <i>S. enterica</i> in fresh-cut wax gourd. The combination of TP (1.0%) and TS (50 °C, 1 min) treatment followed by storage at 4 °C may be a suitable bacteriostatic scheme for the preservation of fresh-cut wax gourd. Fluorescence microscopy analyses indicated that TP and TS treatment could lead to the destruction of the cell membrane, followed by the leakage of cytoplasm, and, finally, cell death. ANFIS with the gaussmf function performed well in modeling and predicting the population of <i>Salmonella</i> in fresh-cut wax gourd and provided a powerful tool for modelling and predicting microbe population and the shelf life of food products.