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Title: DETECTION OF SALMONELLA FROM CHICKEN AND CHICKEN PRODUCTS WITH THE AUTOMATED BAX PCR SYSTEM

Author
item Bailey, Joseph
item Cosby, Douglas

Submitted to: Journal of Food Protection
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/7/2003
Publication Date: 11/1/2003
Citation: Bailey, J.S., Cosby, D.E. 2003. Detection of salmonella from chicken and chicken products with the automated bax pcr system. Journal of Food Protection. 66(11):2138-2140.

Interpretive Summary: More testing is done for Salmonella than for any other foodborne bacterial pathogen. The majority of these assays consists of cultural procedures which take 3 to 4 days or immunoassay procedures which take 2 to 3 days. This report evaluates and documents the effectiveness of the first automated genetic amplification (PCR) procedure (BAX®) for detection of Salmonella from poultry and other food products. The automated BAX® system provided a reliable Salmonella screen of chicken product samples within 24 hours which was more sensitive than standard cultural procedures.

Technical Abstract: More testing is done for Salmonella than for any other foodborne bacterial pathogen. Chicken and chicken products comprise a substantial portion of the products tested. The BAX® System with automated PCR detection was compared to standard cultural procedures for detection of natural and spiked Salmonella from 183 chicken carcass rinses and 90 chicken hot dogs. The automated assay procedure is as follows: overnight growth (16 to 18 hours) of sample in buffered peptone broth at 35 C, transfer of sample to lysis tubes, incubation and lysis of cells, and transfer of sample to PCR tubes which are placed in cycler/detector which runs automatically. The BAX® PCR/detection assay takes about 4 hours. Cultural procedure consists of preerichment, enrichment, plating and serological confirmation and takes about 72 hours. Three replications of 10 to 31 samples were run for each product. Where samples were spiked, 1 to 250 cells of Salmonella Typhimurium, Heidelberg, Montevideo, and Enteritidis per ml of rinse or gram of meat were added. With chicken rinses, Salmonella were detected twice with the BAX® compared with once with culture from 61 unspiked samples. From the 122 spiked samples, Salmonella were recovered 113 times with the BAX® compared to 111 times with culture. With chicken hot dogs, Salmonella were detected in all 60 of the spiked samples with both the BAX® and culture procedures. From the 30 unspiked samples, Salmonella were recovered from 19 of 30 samples with the BAX® compared to 10 of 30 samples with culture. The automated BAX® system provided a reliable Salmonella screen of chicken product samples within 24 hours.