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Classification Listeria monocytogenes & History

L. monocytogenes is a Gram-positive, nonspore-forming, motile, facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped bacterium. It is catalase-positive and oxidase-negative, and expresses a beta hemolysin, which causes destruction of red blood cells. This bacterium exhibits characteristic tumbling motility when viewed with light microscopy. Although L. monocytogenes is actively motile by means of peritrichous flagella at room temperature (20−25°C), the organism does not synthesize flagella at body temperatures (37°C).
The genus Listeria belongs to the class, Bacilli, and the order, Bacillales, which also includes Bacillus and Staphylococcus. The genus Listeria includes seven different species (L. monocytogenes, L. ivanovii, L. innocua, L. welshimeri, L. seeligeri, L. grayi, and L. murrayi). Both L. ivanovii and L. monocytogenes are pathogenic in mice, but only L. monocytogenes is consistently associated with human illness. There are 13 serotypes of L. monocytogenes that can cause disease, but more than 90 percent of human isolates belong to only three serotypes: 1/2a, 1/2b, and 4b. L. monocytogenes serotype 4b strains are responsible for 33 to 50 percent of sporadic human cases worldwide and for all major foodborne outbreaks in Europe and North America since the 1980s.

L. monocytogenes was first described by E.G.D. Murray in 1926 based on six cases of sudden death in young rabbits. Murray referred to the organism as Bacterium monocytogenes before J.H. Harvey Pirie changed the genus name to Listeria in 1940. Although clinical descriptions of L. monocytogenes infection in both animals and humans were published in the 1920s, not until 1952 in East Germany was it recognized as a significant cause of neonatal sepsis and meningitis. Listeriosis in adults would later be associated with patients living with compromised immune systems, such as individuals taking immunosuppressant drugs and corticosteroids for malignancies or organ transplants, and those with HIV infection.

Not until 1981, however, was L. monocytogenes identified as a cause of foodborne illness. An outbreak of listeriosis in Halifax, Nova Scotia involving 41 cases and 18 deaths, mostly in pregnant women and neonates, was epidemiologically linked to the consumption of coleslaw containing cabbage that had been treated with L. monocytogenes-contaminated raw sheep manure. Since then, a number of cases of foodborne listeriosis have been reported, and L. monocytogenes is now widely recognized as an important hazard in the food industry

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Classification Listeria monocytogenes & History Classification Listeria monocytogenes & History Reviewed by Unknown on 10:04 PM Rating: 5

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