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The Swab, the Drip, or the Meat? Comparison of Microbiological Sampling Methods in Vacuum-Packed Raw Beef

Microorganisms 2025, 13(1), 159; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms13010159

by Aracely Martínez-Moreno¹, America Chávez-Martínez¹

, Janet E. Corry², Christopher R. Helps², Raúl. A. Reyes-Villagrana^1,3,*

, Juan. M. Tirado Gallegos¹

, Eduardo Santellano-Estrada¹

and Ana L. Rentería-Monterrubio^1,*

Reviewer 1: Anonymous

Reviewer 2: Anonymous

Microorganisms 2025, 13(1), 159; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms13010159

Submission received: 27 November 2024 / Revised: 1 January 2025 / Accepted: 8 January 2025 / Published: 14 January 2025

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Persistence and Antimicrobial Resistance of Bacterial Pathogens in the Food Processing Environment)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The present research titled "The Swab, the drip, or the meat? Comparison of microbiological sampling methods in vacuum-packed raw beef" is a very interesting study with significant practical applications, aligning well with the journal's scope. However, there are several major issues that need to be addressed to enhance the rigor and clarity of the manuscript.

Major issues

1. While the authors state that the experiment was laid out in a completely randomized design, it remains unclear how the samples were assigned to treatments. How were variations in prior contaminations accounted for before assigning samples to each treatment? It would be important to include controls for contamination during sample preparation and sampling for each treatment.

2. Please provide details regarding the dilutions used for colony counting to ensure reproducibility.

3. I recommend incorporating qPCR to validate and ensure the reliability of the results.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

1. There are long sentences in the discussion section that may be difficult to understand.

2. grammar issues: "it is laid out?

Author Response

Reviewer comment 1. While the authors state that the experiment was laid out in a completely randomized design, it remains unclear how the samples were assigned to treatments.

Answer. Every meat pack (samples) was sampled with the three protocols in the following order; first drip, then swabbing and finally excision. The comment is highly appreciated as it was not stated before in the paper, but now it is included in the description.

Reviewer comment 2. It would be important to include controls for contamination during sample preparation and sampling for each treatment.

Answer. Beef, naturally has between 2 - 4 log10 CFU, hence, the meat packs were prepared and sampled under controlled conditions (in an inoculation chamber).

Reviewer comment 3. Please provide details regarding the dilutions used for colony counting to ensure reproducibility.

Answer. This section was modified to explain the dilution and inoculation methods.

Reviewer comment 4. I recommend incorporating qPCR to validate and ensure the reliability of the results.

Answer. The comment is highly appreciated and agreed that such method would add a higher level of reliability. Unfortunately, as we do not have the resources to perform QPCR, the issue was approached only through traditional microbiology methods.

Reviewer comment 5. There are long sentences in the discussion section that may be difficult to understand.

Answer. The whole section was checked.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

The work is written precisely, without superfluous details. The structure is appropriate. The literature is not the most up-to-date, there are almost no references from the last 5 years. Regardless of the fact that it is an original Article, the number of literature references is scarce. The proposal is to expand the list of references with more recent references. The literature in the list of references is cited in a way that is NOT in accordance with the Instructions for Authors, so the whole must be redacted. I entered all the above suggestions and needs/reasons for correction as comments in the PDF document that I downloaded from the SuSy system, so that they are visible to the authors, other reviewers and editors.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Comment 1. Perhaps it would be more correct to write "microbiological status", instead of "microbiological conditions".