Pressure inactivation kinetics of Yersinia enterocolitica ATCC 35669

The survival curves of Yersinia enterocolitica ATCC 35669 inactivated by high hydrostatic pressure were obtained at four pressure levels (300, 350, 400, and 450 MPa) in sodium phosphate buffer (0.1 M, pH 7.0) and four pressure levels (350, 400, 450, 500 MPa) in UHT whole milk. Tailing was observed in all the survival curves. A linear model and three nonlinear models were fitted to these data and the performances of these models were compared. The linear regression model for survival curves at four pressure levels had regression coefficients (R2) values of 0.785–0.962 and mean square error (MSE) of 0.265–0.893. A residual plot strongly suggested that a linear regression function was not appropriate as there was strong curvature in the plotted data. The nonlinear regression model using the log-logistic had R2 values of 0.946–0.982 and MSE values of 0.110–0.320. The Weibull model had R2 values of 0.944–0.975 and MSE values of 0.153–0.349. These results indicated that both were better models to describe the pressure inactivation kinetics of Y. enterocolitica in milk and buffer. Among the three nonlinear models studied, the modified Gompertz model produced the poorest fit to data. The number of parameters of the log-logistic model was reduced from four to two so that the model was greatly simplified. The reduced log-logistic model still produced a fit comparable to the full model. Since pressure had no significant effect on the shape factors of the Weibull model at the pressure levels of 300–400 MPa for buffer and 400–500 MPa for milk, models were developed to predict survival curves of Y. enterocolitica at pressures different from the experimental pressures.