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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Food Microbiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1418333
This article is part of the Research Topic Listeria monocytogenes: Do We Know Enough About This Pathogen? View all articles

Surveillance and genetic characterization of Listeria monocytogenes in the food chain in Montenegro during the period 2014-2022

Provisionally accepted
Beatriz Daza Prieto Beatriz Daza Prieto 1,2Ariane Pietzka Ariane Pietzka 1*Aleksandra Martinovic Aleksandra Martinovic 3Werner Ruppitsch Werner Ruppitsch 1,3Ivana Zuber Bogdanovic Ivana Zuber Bogdanovic 3*
  • 1 Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), Vienna, Austria
  • 2 Faculty of Technical Chemistry, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • 3 Other, Podgorica, Montenegro

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Listeria monocytogenes is an ubiquitous foodborne pathogen that represents a serious threat to public health and the food industry. In this study Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) was used to characterize 160 L. monocytogenes isolates obtained from 22,593 different food sources in Montenegro during the years 2014-2022. Isolates belonged to 21 different clonal complexes (CCs), 22 sequence types (STs) and 73 core genome multilocus sequence types (cgMLST) revealing a high diversity. The most prevalent STs were ST8 (n=29), ST9 (n=31), ST121 (n=19) and ST155 (n=20). All isolates carried virulence genes (VGs), 111 isolates carried mobile genetic elements (MGEs) (ranging from 1-7 MGEs) and 101 isolates carried plasmids (ranging from 1-3 plasmids). All isolates carried the intrinsic resistance genes fosX and lin. None of the isolates carried acquired antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs).

    Keywords: Listeria monocytogenes, Whole-genome sequencing, Food products, antimicrobial resistance genes, Montenegro

    Received: 16 Apr 2024; Accepted: 05 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Daza Prieto, Pietzka, Martinovic, Ruppitsch and Zuber Bogdanovic. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Ariane Pietzka, Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), Vienna, Austria
    Ivana Zuber Bogdanovic, Other, Podgorica, Montenegro

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