Antimicrobial Activity of Copper Alone and in Combination with Lactic Acid against Escherichia coli O157H7 in Laboratory Medium and on the Surface of Lettuce and Tomatoes.pdfVIP

SAGE-Hindawi Access to Research Journal of Pathogens Volume 2011, Article ID 650968, 9 pages doi:10.4061/2011/650968 Research Article Antimicrobial Activity of Copper Alone and in Combination with Lactic Acid against Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Laboratory Medium and on the Surface of Lettuce and Tomatoes Rabin Gyawali,1 Salam A. Ibrahim,1 Salma H. Abu Hasfa,2 Shahnaz Q. Smqadri,3 and Yosef Haik3 1 Food Microbiology and Biotechnology Laboratory, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, 173 Carver Hall, Greensboro, NC 27411, USA 2 LFRD Department, ALCDR Institute, City of Scientific Research and Technology Applications, P.O. Box 21934, Alexandria, Egypt 3 Center of Research Excellence in Nanobioscience, The University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Salam A. Ibrahim, ibrah001@ Received 22 June 2011; Accepted 22 August 2011 Academic Editor: Hin-Chung Wong Copyright © 2011 Rabin Gyawali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of copper alone and in combination with lactic acid against E. coli O157:H7 in laboratory medium and on the surface of lettuce and tomatoes. Four strains of E. coli O157:H7 were individually inoculated into BHI broth containing different concentrations of copper (5, 10, 20, and 40 ppm, w/v), lactic acid (0.1 and 0.2%, v/v), and their combinations. After incubation, aliquots of 1 mL from each sample were withdrawn and plated on BHI agar to determine the bacterial population. Significant growth inhibition (P 0.05) was observed with a combinati