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Title: Simplified Capacitance Monitoring for the Determination of Campylobacter spp. Growth Rates

Author
item AKINS, DEANN - UGA
item RULE, PATRICIA - BIOMERIEUX, INC.
item KEENER, MICHELLE - BIOMERIEUX, INC.
item Line, John
item Simmons, Ibn Abdul
item HARRISON, MARK - UGA
item Hiett, Kelli

Submitted to: Journal of Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/22/2008
Publication Date: 1/2/2009
Citation: Akins, D.E., Rule, P.L., Keener, M.R., Line, J.E., Simmons, I.M., Harrison, M.A., Hiett, K.L. 2009. Simplified Capacitance Monitoring for the Determination of Campylobacter spp. Growth Rates. Journal of Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology. 17(1):3-8. 2009.

Interpretive Summary: Campylobacter are bacteria that normally inhabit the gastrointestinal tract of chickens and can cause a significant proportion of food-borne disease. The high colonization incidence of poultry by Campylobacter and the resultant clinical infections in humans have prompted a number of investigations focused upon identifying and subsequently eliminating Campylobacter spp. from poultry. Epithelial cell invasion is considered to be an essential step in Campylobacter spp. infection of humans. When invasion studies are performed, it is required that Campylobacter spp. isolates be grown within a range of 106-108 CFU/ml. Consequently, determination of growth curves for Campylobacter spp. can be a time consuming and labor intensive process prior to completing cell invasion or other assays such as gene content or transcriptome analyses using microarrys for this organism. In our investigation, we demonstrated that growth rate varies among Campylobacter isolates. Additionally, we optimized conditions for use of the Bactometer such that growth rates can be quickly obtained.

Technical Abstract: Capacitance monitoring is commonly used as an efficient means to measure growth curves of bacterial pathogens. However, the use of capacitance monitoring with Campylobacter spp. was previously determined difficult due to the complexity of the required media. We investigated capacitance monitoring using a simplified medium for the efficient and reproducible construction of growth curves for C. jejuni. It was determined that the addition of 0.1M sodium pyruvate to Mueller Hinton broth was essential for the completion of Campylobacter spp. growth curves with the Bactometer®.