Abstract

Meat products as rich sources of several nutrients are easily contaminated by microorganisms, which are widely predominant in the environment. Moreover, meat products could also be adulterated with equine, pig, chicken, and mouse meat, and their existence is risky for consumers. A total of 140 meat product samples (minced beef meat, beef burger, sausage, beef luncheon, frankfurter, kofta, and bastirma; 20 samples from each product) were gathered from various supermarkets in Cairo governorate, Egypt. Those samples were subjected to bacteriological and mycological examination together with a novel multiplex PCR method to detect bovine, donkey, horse, pork, chicken, and mouse species in the processed meat in a single reaction step. The results revealed that minced meat had the highest total colony count and Staphylococcus aureus counts were the highest in sausage samples. Escherichia coli mean values were the highest in luncheon samples and minced meat indicated the highest Salmonella count. However, beef burger counts were the highest for both yeast and mold count. For multiplex PCR results, only 16.4% of meat products samples were negative for bovine species. Moreover, 88.5% and 9.2% were respectively positive to chicken and mouse speciesand negative to equine and pig species. Thus, microbial contamination reported in the current study could raise attention toward the implementation of food safety standards in both factories and markets. Moreover, and multiplex PCR-based assay executed in the current study is suggested since it could afford sensitive and specific detection of mitochondrial cytochrome-b (mtcyt-b) DNA in processed meat products samples to detect and prevent troubles related to wellbeing and safety.