Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania » Eastern Regional Research Center » Microbial and Chemical Food Safety » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #432993
Research Project: Development and Validation of Predictive Models and Pathogen Modeling Programs; and Data Acquisition for International Microbial Databases

Location: Microbial and Chemical Food Safety

Title: A dynamic predictive model for Bacillus cereus growth from spores in tryptic soy broth under temperature abuse conditions

Author
item Juneja, Vijay
item Osoria, Marangeli
item GAO, JUAN - University Of Georgia
item KAPOOR, HARSIMRAN - University Of Georgia
item OZTURK, SAMET - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item PUROHIT, ANUJ - University Of Connecticut
item MISHRA, ABHINAV - University Of Georgia

Submitted to: International Journal of Food Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/14/2026
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Bacillus cereus-associated foodborne illness is most often related to improper cooling, storage, or holding of cooked foods. We characterized the growth behavior of this deadly pathogen to develop predictive growth model and evaluated its performance under dynamic temperatures. This model developed can describe B. cereus growth under non-isothermal temperature conditions. This predictive model will help with microbial risk assessment associated with temperature fluctuations during food processing, storage, and distribution, and will assist both the food industry and regulatory agencies in evaluating compliance with relevant performance standards.

Technical Abstract: Bacillus cereus, a common foodborne pathogen, can cause emetic and diarrheal food poisoning. The associated outbreaks are commonly caused by temperature abuse during food cooling, storage, and transportation. This study developed a model to predict B. cereus growth from spores based on isothermal growth data collected at 10–54.4C in tryptic soy broth. A four-strain spore cocktail was heated at 80C for 10 min and inoculated to an initial level of approximately 2 log CFU/mL. Growth curves at temperatures showing growth (15–50C) were fitted using the Baranyi model. The average h0 value was 3.04. The temperature dependence of the maximum specific growth rate was characterized using the modified Ratkowsky model. The estimated theoretical minimum and maximum growth temperatures were 8.94C and 54.11C, respectively. The lag phase duration was related to temperature using a hyperbolic function. All models showed good agreement with the observed data, with satisfactory fit statistics (R2 = 0.953–0.998 and RMSE = 0.073–0.904). The Baranyi differential equations were solved numerically using a fourth-order Runge–Kutta method to build the dynamic model. Model validation was conducted under two sinusoidal non-isothermal temperature profiles (10–30C for 30 h and 25–45C for 23 h). According to the acceptable prediction zone analysis, 94.12% of the prediction errors fell within -1.0–0.5 log CFU/g. These results demonstrated that the dynamic model could precisely predict B. cereus growth and be used to support temperature abuse risk assessment for the food industry and regulatory agencies.