As the world wrestles with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which arose after the virus jumped from an animal species to the human species, University of Delaware researchers are learning about new ways other pathogens are jumping from plants to people.

Opportunistic bacteria — salmonella, listeria and E.coli, for example — often piggyback on raw vegetables, poultry, beef and other foods to gain entry into a human host, causing millions of foodborne illnesses each year.

But University of Delaware researchers Harsh Bais and Kali Kniel and their collaborators now have found that wild strains of salmonella can circumvent a plant’s immune defense system, getting into the leaves of lettuce by opening up the plant’s tiny breathing pores called stomates.

The plant shows no symptoms of this invasion and once inside the plant, the pathogens cannot just be washed off.

Read more at University Of Delaware

Photo: Kali Kniel is a professor of microbial food safety in the University of Delaware’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.  Photos by Kathy F. Atkinson

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