ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Research Article | Open Access
Rahul Kumar1, Neha Kamboj1, Vinod Kumar2, Sanjay Kumar2, Navin Kumar3 and Pankaj Gautam1
1Department of Microbiology, Graphic Era (Deemed to be University), Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
2Department of Food Science and Technology, Graphic Era (Deemed to be University), Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
3Department of Biotechnology, Graphic Era (Deemed to be University), Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
Article Number: 10071 | © The Author(s). 2025
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2025;19(1):459-469. https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.19.1.36
Received: 17 November 2024 | Accepted: 23 January 2025 | Published online: 27 February 2025
Issue online: March 2025

The preprint of this article can be found here

Abstract

Salmonella-related gastroenteritis and diarrheal infections pose significant health risks across all age groups in the developing countries. The high consumption of raw green leafy vegetables, particularly among health-conscious and younger populations, may further increase the risk of infection if food preparation is inadequate. In the current study, 645 vegetable samples were collected over the year, and 61 samples tested positive for bacterial contamination of Salmonella spp. The highest bacterial contamination was recorded in cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata) (18.60%, positive (n)/total sample (N) = 8/43), Bathua (Chenopodium album), and fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-gracecum) (18.60%, n/N = 8/43), followed by cauliflower (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis) (13.95%, n/N = 6/43), parsley (Petroselinum crispum), spinach (Spinacia oleracea), and purslane (Portulaca oleracea) (11.62%, n/N = 5/43). The vegetable samples were collected randomly, and vegetables were subsequently assessed biochemically and microbiologically. Over the year, monthly analysis revealed peak contamination percentages in February (15.55%, n/N = 7/45), September (11.66%, n/N = 7/60), August, and January (10.66%, n/N = 8/75). The 15 samples was selected from 61 Salmonella isolates for antibiotic susceptibility profiling showed the high resistance to methicillin (93.33%, n/N = 14/15), Cefpodoxime, Clindamycin, and Teicoplanin (80%, n/N = 12/15), Linezolid, Novobiocin, Colistin, and Nitrofurantoin (53.33%, n/N = 8/15). Analysis of randomly selected vegetable samples using 16S rRNA confirmed the presence of Salmonella typhimurium subspecies as the predominant serovars. The present study is crucial for understanding the nature of bacterial flora, resistance, and transmission.

Keywords

Antimicrobial Resistance, Food Safety, Salmonella spp., Prevalence, Vegetables

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© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.