EDITORIAL NOTE 2014202695 There are four pages of description only Description: Food processing industry and its production processes are prone to microbial contamination due to continual contact with foreign surfaces and water in several cases. Poor sanitation of food contact and non-contact surfaces has been a contributing factor to outbreaks of food borne diseases. More particularly, the bacteria often live in drains and other moist areas. These outbreaks are caused by pathogens, especially Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus etc. Hence, it is very important to choose a suitable disinfectant which effectively addresses the sanitation challenges in food plants. Chemicals are widely used to control bacterial contaminations. Treatment is performed using strong oxidizing agents like chlorine, Chlorine dioxide and peracetic acids, however, with limited effects. Chemical sanitizers (such as chlorine, iodine and quaternary ammonium compounds) pose pH dependency, corrosion, objectionable odor and limited effectiveness against certain pathogens. Also usage of chemicals inside the processing plant is outlawed in certain organic food processing industries. Auspiciously, humans have been exposed to bacteriophages ever since the beginning of time with absolutely no adverse impact or reaction, and therefore, rather than improving sanitation measures in the processing plants and increasing testing for pathogen, the biotechnology companies plan to use their new phage products in the sanitation. Therefore, in recent years, biotechnology companies began developing bacteriophage products that are used as food ingredients and also designed to be sprayed, misted or washed onto cattle hides, drainage, etc. to reduce the presence of Escherichia coli. Since now phage therapy is applied by means of selective phage introduction in to the desired spot, whereas, successful phage treatment of wastewater bacterial pathogens would be dependent on the prevalence and diversity of pathogen species within wastewater. It would be virtually impossible to produce phage targeted at all pathogenic serotypes. For example, there is a high diversity of E. coli serotypes and around 2400 known Salmonella serotypes exist. Microbial community structure varies considerably and such disparity could hinder the development of tailor-made phage treatments because community structure can vary substantially between processing sites. Therefore we planned to exploit the fact "Bacteriophage is parasitic to bacteria" by enriching Native phage to combat bacterial proliferation by means of Microfiltration (MF) and recirculation of wastewater at critical non food contact areas and drains of food processing industries. However, in most cases, temperate phages reel toward the lysogenic cycle especially when most of the other local bacteria undergoing the same phage infection, making the bacteria decrease in density. Because of this "crisis," they go-to lysogenic cycle. It confers an advantage to the bacteria that indirectly benefits the virus through enhanced lysogen survival and confers immunity for the host bacteria from lytic infection by related viruses. While the lysogenic cycle causes no harm to the host cell, an induction event, such as exposure to ultraviolet light, can cause this latent stage to enter the lytic cycle. As soon as the cell is destroyed, the phage progeny can find new hosts to infect. Lytic phages are more suitable for phage treatment. In our approach, Permeate flows directly to an existing storage tank, while reject flows back to a separate tank which would be UV treated to kill all the bacteria and also UV treatment facilitates conversion of lysogenic to lytic phages and thus, no phage is left lysogenic during normal operation of our approach.
Sequence Listing: Phages are widely distributed in locations populated by bacterial hosts. Phage reproduction is much faster than typical bacterial reproduction, so entire colonies can be destroyed very quickly. Therefore, our approach of filtseration and recirculation helps to enrich the native phages selective to the bacteria present in the respective industry and as a result most of the available bacteria would be destroyed. Our approach actually increases its effectiveness with increase in time at an exponential manner and the high degree of safety associated with our approach suggests a low risk-to-benefit ratio because exposing the Microfiltration reject to UV treatment kills all the bacteria and also facilitates conversion of lysogenic to lytic phages and thus, no phage is left lysogenic during normal operation. Our method is a generalized approach where instead of applying high concentrations of specific phage as an inundative treatment to ensure a rapid 'passive' kill by primary infection of target bacteria; we are utilizing Low-level application of native phages for long-term control of bacterial populations where continuous removal is sustained by actively replicating native phage populations. A brief description of drawing: The washout/wastewater from the industry is discharged through the drains and the raw water passes through a basket strainer to remove any large solids and enters tank T- 1 for feed to the MF unit. Feed to the membranes passes through a basket strainer to remove any large solids that might otherwise clog the fiber inlet ends. A level control gauge in the tank modifies inlet valve operation such that the tank maintains a constant level. Pump P-1 (rated at 20 HP) moves the raw water to the membranes. This pump is controlled by a variable frequency drive (VFD) to adjust the output based on the flow rate requested by the operator. Permeate flows directly to an existing storage tank, while reject flows back to a separate tank which would be UV treated to kill all the bacteria and also UV treatment facilitates conversion of lysogenic to lytic phages. Thus, no phage is left lysogenic during normal operation. The standard mode of operation for our system is 10 minutes of water production followed by a one-minute air scrub/reverse flush (AS/RF) cycle to remove solids that collect on the membrane surfaces. The AS/RF utilizes previously-filtered water stored in tank T-2 for washing. The rinse water flows backwards through the membranes from inside-to-out to Reject Tank. During the cycle, valve opens to admit air to the membranes, which scours the membrane surface. The water coming out from MF unit is referred to as Permeate, and contains the phages which is re circulated in to the industry to wash the critical non-food contact surface areas and yet again reaches the drain and by the way it controls bacterial population.