A vitalistic model to describe the thermal inactivation ofListeria monocytogenes

Summary Thermal inactivation of microorganisms has traditionally been described as log-linear in nature, that is the reduction in log numbers of survivors decreases in a linear manner with time. This is despite a plethora of data that shows consistent deviations from such kinetics for a wide range of organisms and conditions and that cannot be accounted for by experimental artifacts. Existing thermal death models fail to take such deviations into account and also fail to quantify the effects of heating menstruum on heat sensitivity. The thermal inactivation ofListeria monocytogenes ATCC 19115 has been investigated using a factorially-designed experiment comparing 45 conditions of salt concentration, pH value and temperature. Heating was carried out using a Submerged Coil heating apparatus that minimized experimental artifacts. Low pH values increased, whilst high salt concentrations decreased heat sensitivity. Results showed a significant and consistent deviation from log-linear kinetics, particularly at low temperatures. A number of distributions were tested for suitability to describe the variability of heat sensitivity within the population of heated cells (vitalistic approach). The use of the logistic function and log dose (log time) allowed the development of an accurate unifying predictive model across the whole range of heating conditions. It is proposed that this approach should be tested as a generalized modeling technique for death kinetics of vegetative bacteria.