Molecular Genetic Approach to the Fermented Horse Meat Microflora Screening

Abstract The terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) technique is considered as a rapid and reliable tool for microbial community fingerprinting. The aim of the present study was to characterize microbial community of fermented sausage-like product from horse meat using T-RFLP technique. The product contained horse meat, horse fat, salt, honey and garlic. A total of 36 samples were collected, and 12 pooled samples were analysed. We demonstrated that microflora in the investigated fermented horse meat sausage-like product mainly consisted of safe and non-culturable bacteria (approximately 80%). The remaining part was represented by the conditionally pathogenic microflora, while the pathogenic microorganisms (Campylobacter) accounted only for .0.7% of total community. Lactobacteria accounted for 53.9% of the total microbial number when measured by T-RFLP, and 50.6% when using real-time PCR. We concluded that T-RFPL approaches can be effectively used for research purposes for detection of pathogenic and conditionally pathogenic microflora, and in inspection programs