DETERMINATION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF GENETIC DIVERSITY IN LISTERIA ISOLATED FROM FOOD AND ENVIRONMENT

Listeriosis in humans and animals is caused by the opportunistic bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. The repeated outbreaks in 1980s have increased the interest in the epidemiology of the disease. The organism is widely distributed in the environment, and healthy carriers are found among humans and animals. It has been isolated from a variety of foods including chicken, cheese, milk, sausages, and smoked, fermented and marinated fish products.
The ubiquity of L. monocytogenes and risk to the target populations make study of the epidemiology of the etiological agent important. Phage and serotyping have been employed in conjunction with other methods in modern molecular biology to isolate, identify and type the various strains of L. monocytogenes. Information regarding the genetic diversity among different species of the genus Listeria and among the same species is lacking. This report attempts to address this problem.