Abstract: Traditional thermal sterilization has been demonstrated to cause adverse effects on food quality, resulting in undesired consequences including color changes, odor generation and nutritional loss. The non-thermal sterilization technology is a new processing technology that has been applied in the food industry, which has little influence on the color, aroma, taste and nutritional components of foods by keeping a relatively low temperature during their processing. At the same time, non-thermal sterilization is beneficial to maintain the physiological activity of various functional components in foods to meet the demands of consumers for high-quality foods. Microbial spores have strong resistance to food processing and have great potential for germination and growth in foods. Therefore, inactivation of microbial spores by low-temperature or non-thermal sterilization technology is currently a serious challenge and an important topic in the food industry. The effects and mechanisms of action of various non-thermal sterilization technologies such as high hydrostatic pressure, high-pressure CO2, non-thermal plasma, ultraviolet radiation, and high voltage pulsed electric field individually or in combination with other treatments on spore inactivation are summarized. Focus is given on the application and molecular mechanism of spore inactivation in the food industry. This review is expected to provide solutions for the production of safe foods and reduction of microbial contamination in different kinds of foods.

Key words: non-thermal sterilization technology, spores, high hydrostatic pressure technology, high-pressure CO2 technology, non-thermal plasma technology