Genomic evidence of environmental and resident Salmonella Senftenberg and Montevideo contamination in the pistachio supply-chain

Pistachios have been implicated in two salmonellosis outbreaks and multiple recalls in the U.S. This study performed a retrospective data analysis of Salmonella associated with pistachios and a storage study to evaluate the survivability of Salmonella on inoculated inshell pistachios to further understand the genetics and microbiological dynamics of this commodity-pathogen pair. The retrospective data analysis on isolates associated with pistachios was performed from both short-read and long-read sequencing technologies. The sequence data were analyzed using the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) analysis and Whole Genome Multi-locus Sequence Typing (wgMLST) pipeline.

The storage study evaluated the survival of five strains of Salmonella on pistachios, both in a cocktail as well as individually. Our results demonstrate: i) evidence of persistent Salmonella Senftenberg and Salmonella Montevideo strains in pistachio environments, some of which may be due to clonal resident strains and some of which may be due to preharvest contamination; ii) presence of the Copper Homeostasis and Silver Resistance Island (CHASRI) in Salmonella Senftenberg and Montevideo strains in the pistachio supply chain; and iii) different serovars of Salmonella enterica, including Salmonella Senftenberg and Salmonella Montevideo, are able to survive in pistachios over an extended period of time.