Adhesion of Pathogenic Bacteria to Food Contact Surfaces: Influence of pH of Culture

Table 2

Free energy of adhesion (mJ⋅m⁻²) of the four pathogens to polystyrene (PS) and to glass (GS) as a function of culture pH.

Bacterium	pH	Δ𝐺adh PS^1	Δ𝐺adh GS1
Aeromonas hydrophila	6	−35.9±1.4^b	18.0±0.2^b
	7	−37.7±1.0^b	18.2±0.3^b
	8	−38.0±0.1^b	18.0±0.1^b
Escherichia coli O157:H7	6	−38.8±1.3^a	17.3±0.3^b
	7	−39.7±0.4^a	17.3±0.0^b
	8	−39.0±1.1^a	17.3±0.1^b
Salmonella Enteritidis	6	−40.9±0.5^a	17.1±0.4^a
	7	−42.8±0.8^a	16.9±0.0^a
	8	−42.8±1.4^a	16.9±0.0^a
Staphylococcus aureus	6	−39.6±0.4^a	16.1±0.8^c
	7	−43.2±1.1^b	17.0±0.1^bc
	8	−41.4±0.4^ab	18.3±0.0^a

1 Δ𝐺_adh PS and Δ𝐺_adh GS are the free energies of adhesion of the bacteria to polystyrene and glass, respectively.
a-c In a column, for each given bacterium, values with the same letter are not significantly different (𝑃>.05).