This is how its juice kills the bacteria that makes us sick.
Foodborne bacteria and their toxins have caused and continue to cause serious health problems. Especially Clostridia, Escherichia, Listeria, Salmonella, Shigella And Vibrio.
The use of spices such as garlic, oregano or allspice, which have antimicrobial and antifungal effects, has been one of the reasons for human evolutionary success. But what if a vegetable as common in our dishes as the tomato Can it also kill microorganisms? New research points in this direction.
The second garden crop after potatoes.
Tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) They are one of the most consumed vegetables in the world. Global production of fresh tomatoes in 2021 was just over 189.1 million tonnes, making them the second most important horticultural crop after potatoes.
(A bacterium that lives in more than half of Spaniards and is linked to Alzheimer’s disease)
And its nutritional and health benefits are due to biologically active molecules (lycopene, polyphenols and vitamins among others) have been widely studied and associated with a wide range of health benefits, information on their antimicrobial properties has been very sparse.
Asia is the world’s leading tomato producer, accounting for 64.8% of total global tomato production, according to a 2021 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Europe, Africa, North America and South America account for 13.3%, 11.6%, 5.98% and 3.9.5% of total tomato production respectively.
Now, in a study recently published in Microbiological spectrumScientists from Cornell University have proven that tomato juice can kill Salmonella Tifi and other bacteria that damage the human digestive and urinary tract.
More than twenty million cases of typhoid fever per year
Typhoid fever, a potentially fatal infectious disease transmitted by the fecal-oral route that affects millions of people each year, is caused by bacteria. Salmonella entericaserovariant Tiphi (Salmonella Tifi, hereinafter). This bacterium lives only in the blood and digestive system of humans. It is the leading cause of death from infections caused by intestinal pathogens. Every year they register 21 million cases of typhoid feverwhich cause 200,000 deaths worldwide.
Typhoid fever can be treated with antibiotics, although increasing resistance to them is making the task increasingly difficult. On the other hand, despite the availability of typhoid vaccines, many developing countries continue to face insurmountable barriers to accessing them.
The study of the role of tomato was carried out in several stages. First, through laboratory experiments, researchers have demonstrated that tomato juice does indeed have antibacterial properties. Once its effectiveness was proven, they computer analyzed the tomato genome to find the antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) responsible for this process. This is how they determined two powerful AMPs capable of killing bacteria.
Direct attack on the membrane
Antimicrobial peptides are proteins of natural origin which have antibiotic properties. These are components of the innate immune response that are conserved through various evolutionary processes and play a crucial role in the fight against infections caused by bacteria, fungi and viruses.
Their rapid antimicrobial activity is due to the fact that they directly attack the lipid bilayer of the microbial cell membrane, forming pores, which ultimately leads to membrane permeability and subsequent bacterial death. In addition to direct antimicrobial properties, AMPs have the ability to modulate immune responses and stimulate the release cytokines and chemokinesproteins that have a stimulating or suppressive effect on the immune response and are used to help the body fight cancer, infections and other diseases.
Once these two AMPs were identified, the team carried out further tests on different variants of bacteria that appear in places around the world where the disease is common.
Finally, they tested the effectiveness of tomato juice against other intestinal pathogens that can damage the digestive and urinary tracts. As a result, they found positive responses of both antimicrobial peptides against Salmonella Typhi, non-gastric Salmonella (Salmonella Tiphimurius) and strains coli which cause urinary tract infections such as cystitis.
Thus, this study provides valuable information on the potential use tomatoes as a natural antimicrobial food source to promote public health. Given the wide distribution of crops in a wide range of climates, tomatoes have significant potential in the fight against pathogenic bacteria.
* Manuel Peinado Lorca is professor emeritus and director of the Royal Botanical Garden of the University of Alcalá.
**This article was originally published on Talk.