Development of a Surface Adhesion Immunofluorescent Technique for the rapid detection of Salmonella spp. from meat and poultry

摘要

A rapid method based on bacterial adhesion was developed for the detection of Salmonella in an enriched meat system. Minced beef samples inoculated with Salm. enteritidis (10 cfu g~(-1)) were incubated overnight (18 h) at 37 deg C in buffered peptone water. Salmonella enteritidis cells were isolated from the enriched meat sample by surface adhesion onto a polycarbonate membrane attached to a glass slide. The organisms attached to this polycarbonate membrane were subsequently visualized using immunofluorescent microscopy. The technique had a detection level of log_(10) 3.5 Salmonella ml~(-1). The surface adhesion immunofluorescent technique correlated well with Salmonella plate counts (r~2 = 0.99). Application of the rapid method to retail beef and poultry samples (n = 100) confirmed the correlation between this technique and traditional microbiological procedures. Thirty-one retail samples were reported positive for Salmonella species. No false positives or negatives were recorded for the rapid method.