Standard cleaning processes may not remove all the soiling typically found in food industry, such as carbohydrates, fats, or proteins. Contaminants have a high impact in disinfection as their presence may reduce the activity of disinfectants. The influence of alginic acid, bovine serum albumin, yeast extract, and humic acids was assessed on the antimicrobial activities of benzalkonium chloride ...

Tolerance of the foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes to sublethal concentrations of disinfectants has been frequently reported. Particularly, quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) such as benzalkonium chloride (BC) are often used in disinfectants and also as antiseptics in food industry and hospitals. Recently, we described Tn6188, a novel transposon in L. monocytogenes harbouring the tran...

BACKGROUND Benzalkonium chloride (BAC) is a quaternary ammonium compound (QAC) toxic to microorganisms. Inhalation is one of the major possible routes of human exposure to BAC. MATERIALS AND METHODS Experiments were performed on female Wistar rats. The rats were exposed to aerosol of BAC water solution at the target concentration of 0 (control group) and 35 mg/m(3) for 5 days (6 h/day) and, a...

Biocides play an essential role in limiting the spread of infectious disease. The food industry is dependent on these agents, and their increasing use is a matter for concern. Specifically, the emergence of bacteria demonstrating increased tolerance to biocides, coupled with the potential for the development of a phenotype of cross-resistance to clinically important antimicrobial compounds, nee...

Benzalkonium chloride (BAC) is commonly used as a bactericidal preservative in nebulizer solutions, and can cause paradoxical onchoconstriction following nebulizing therapy in some asthmatics. We describe a case of anaphylactic shock in a 23-yr-old asthmatic woman following an intradermal skin test with a salbutamol solution containing BAC. Since she complained of cough and dyspnea after inhala...

The block by the symmetric tetraethylammonium (TEA) ion derivatives tetrapropylammonium (TPrA), tetrabutylammonium (TBA), and tetrapentylammonium (TPeA) ions of fast chloride channels in acutely dissociated rat cortical neurons was studied with the excised inside-out configuration of the patch-clamp technique. When applied to the intracellular membrane surface, all three of the quaternary ammon...

PURPOSE Modification of mucous cell density and gel-forming mucin production are established hallmarks of mucosal diseases. Our aim was to develop and validate a mouse model to study live goblet cell density in pathological situations and under pharmacological treatments. METHODS We created a reporter mouse for the gel-forming mucin gene Muc5b. Muc5b-positive goblet cells were studied in the ...

In Vietnam, commercial disinfectants containing quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) are commonly used in pig and poultry farms to maintain hygiene during production. We hypothesized that sustained exposure to sub-bactericidal concentrations of QAC-based disinfectants may result in increased levels of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among Enterobacteriacea due to the increase of efflux pump expr...

The resistance of Listeria monocytogenes to cadmium and arsenic has been used extensively for strain subtyping. However, limited information is available on the prevalence of such resistance among isolates from the environment of food-processing plants. In addition, it is not known whether the resistance of such isolates to heavy metals may correlate with resistance to quaternary ammonium compo...