Archaea in Food Microbiology: Are They Really Possible Threat or Not?

Abstract

In the world of continually growing populations of health compromised individuals, there is an expanding list of pathogenic microorganisms. The list normally includes mainly bacteria, fungi, viruses and protozoa. While the discovery of domain Archaea is considered relatively recent, its biological interaction with human life is still mysterious at different perspectives. This domain is highly distributed globally, even in the harsh environmental conditions, where the possibility of life form existence was excluded. The difficulty of culturing many of Archaeal organisms using conventional culture media is a true barrier for any detection and/or studying of these entities. Only when new bimolecular technologies came into play, some of the ambiguity of these single-celled organisms has begun to resolve. Accordingly, many of Archaeal species may pass the quality control tests undetected to the final consumers. No solidly established data are available till now on our hand about spoilage of food products either preserved or not on storage by Archaea. Moreover, all studies about probable link between certain disease conditions and the presence of Archean are speculating and no true relation was established till now. Thus, the disregard of these microorganisms-especially those on, inside, very close to the human body and the surrounding environment-as potential threat to our life may be a haste discussion when no scientifically rational evidence are available till now. Extensive studies are required to solve this dilemma in a timely manner.