Bacteriocins for Safety of Animal-Derived Foods: Systematic Mapping, Multilevel MIC Analysis, Food-Matrix Applications, and Emerging Antiparasitic Evidence

Foodborne bacterial hazards remain a major challenge for animal-derived food chains, whereas evidence for antiparasitic effects of bacteriocins is much smaller and mechanistically heterogeneous. This systematic review, reported in accordance with PRISMA 2020, used a comprehensive PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science search strategy combining pathogen-specific queries with high-sensitivity terms for specific bacteriocin names/classes, pathogen synonyms, strain/pathotype/serovar terms, food applications, parasite synonyms, and known producer-strain names. Across the reconciled evidence base, 577 MIC observations from 146 studies were curated; 312 exact conventional MIC observations from 94 studies formed the primary quantitative tier. The primary inferential analysis used a one-stage linear mixed-effects model of individual log10-transformed MIC observations, with bacteriocin family and broad target category as fixed effects and random intercepts for study, study-strain combination, and bacteriocin identity. Both bacteriocin family (F(11, 52.58) = 3.568, p < 0.001) and target category (F(6, 115.42) = 4.219, p < 0.001) were significant global terms. Random-intercept variances were 1.098 for study, 0.015 for study-strain, 0.015 for bacteriocin identity, and 0.099 for the residual component. Target-specific study-level aggregations are presented only as descriptive secondary summaries and are not used for inverse-variance inference. The food-application dataset contains 204 unique direct food-matrix studies, 192 involving animal-derived or mixed animal/plant matrices. The dedicated dose-versus-MIC audit included 199 studies; five permitted a direct within-study ratio/equivalence interpretation, whereas most applications were not directly comparable with broth MICs. The antiparasitic mapping identified 11 studies: separately tested anti-Giardia bacteriocin evidence, nine Trichinella studies spanning separately administered enterocins and producer/probiotic strains, and one Cryptosporidium sensitivity-tier preprint. No antiparasitic food-matrix challenge study was identified.