Plant-associated microbes to protect sprouts from human pathogens

“芽”是刚发芽的种子，可以生吃或煮熟吃。尽管有营养价值，但豆芽可能含有人类病原体，包括沙门氏菌、大肠杆菌和李斯特菌。为了符合健康和安全法规，发芽种植者必须对种子进行消毒，仔细控制生长条件，并不断测试种子和产品中的人类病原体。该合作伙伴关系是在不列颠哥伦比亚省Courtenay种植的加拿大芽菜Eatmore Sprouts & Greens有限公司和UBC的Haney实验室之间进行的。Eatmore Sprouts想知道，他们的豆芽上是否存在有益的微生物，无论是来自种子的，还是在生产过程中引入的，都可以保护他们的产品免受人类病原体的侵害。植物通常与一个复杂的微生物群落（它们的“微生物组”）联系在一起，这些微生物群落帮助它们从土壤中吸收养分，并保护它们免受植物病原体的侵害。植物从种子（遗传自亲本）和土壤中获得微生物群。去除这些微生物可能会使豆芽容易被适应性差的人类病原体定植。使用有机卫生方法食用豆芽，可能对内源性微生物的影响较小，并且比传统的氯基方法更适合在卫生后引入有益微生物。该项目旨在确定Eatmore Sprout的种子卫生和传统卫生是否会使豆芽容易受到非适应性人类病原体的侵害。此外，我们计划测试在卫生后引入微生物是否有助于防止病原体爆发。总的来说，这项工作将有助于为Eatmore芽菜提供最佳实践，以进一步减少人类病原体污染的风险。

"Sprouts" are newly germinated seeds that are consumed raw or cooked. Despite nutritional benefits, sproutscan harbour human pathogens including Salmonella, Escherichia coli and Listeria. To meet health and safetyregulations, sprout growers must sanitize their seeds and carefully control growth conditions and continuallytest their seeds and products for human pathogens.This partnership is between Eatmore Sprouts & Greens Ltd., a Canadian sprout growing in Courtenay, BC,and the Haney Lab at UBC. Eatmore Sprouts would like to know if the presence of beneficial microbes on theirsprouts, either derived from seeds, or introduced during production, can protect their products from humanpathogens. Plants normally associate with a complex community of microbes (their "microbiome") that assistthem with nutrient uptake from the soil and protect them from plant pathogens. Plants acquire theirmicrobiome from both the seed (inherited from their parent) and from the soil. It is possible that removingthese microbes may leave sprouts vulnerable to colonization by poorly adapted human pathogens.Eatmore sprouts using an organic sanitation method that may have a lower impact on endogenous microbesand be more compatible with introducing beneficial microbes post sanitation than traditional chlorine-basedmethods. This project aims to determine whether Eatmore Sprout's seed sanitation and traditional sanitationcan leave sprouts vulnerable to non-adapted human pathogens. Additionally, we plan to test whetherintroducing microbes post sanitation can help protect from a pathogen outbreak. Collectively this work willhelp inform Eatmore Sprouts about best practices to further minimize the risk of contamination by humanpathogens.