Comparison among growth model of interacting microorganism : a lactic acid bacteria and Listeria monocytogenes

Abstract

Predictive food microbiology is normally based on mathematical models to predict the growth, inactivation or probability of microorganism growth which can be applied to establish the shelf-life of food. At present the effort in modeling is oriented towards extrapolation of results beyond experiments in order to predict growth of interacting microorganisms and develop new food preservation processes. In the present report two different mechanistic models which describe the growth of two interacting bacteria such as a lactic acid bacteria and Listeria monocytogenes are developed; they include two new inhibition functions based on kinetic reactions to describe the dynamic behavior of heterogeneous cell population. Both models are easy to handle and permit to introduce other kinetic reactions for more complex scenarios.