IDENTIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION OF FOODBORNE PATHOGENS IN DIFFERENT FOOD MATRICES USING FTIR SPECTROSCOPY AND ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

Abstract

FTIR absorbance spectra of four foodborne pathogens suspended in four common food matrices at three differentconcentrations were used with artificial neural networks (ANNs) for identification and quantification. The classificationaccuracy of the ANNs was 93.4% for identification and 95.1% for quantification when validated using a subset of the dataset. The accuracy of the ANNs when validated for identification of the pathogens studied at four different concentrations usingan independent data set had an accuracy range from 60% to 100% and was strongly influenced by background noise. Thepathogens could be identified irrespective of the food matrix in which they were suspended, although the classificationaccuracy was reduced at lower concentrations. More sophisticated background noise filtration techniques are needed tofurther improve the predictions.