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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #191199
Title: COMPARISON OF COMMERCIAL TEST KITS TO SCREEN FOR E. COLI 0157:H7 IN MEDIA

Author
item Narang, Neelam
item Luchansky, John

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/9/2006
Publication Date: 8/13/2006
Citation: Narang, N., Luchansky, J.B. 2006. Comparison of commercial test kits to screen for e. coli 0157:h7 in media. [Abstract] International Association of Food Protection's Annual Meeting P3-61. pg. 152.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Follow-up analyses of food and meat samples that have false-positive screening results consumes laboratory resources. The present study was undertaken to determine the performance characteristics of 5 lateral flow devices (LFD) and a PCR test to screen for E. coli O157:H7 in media. A total of 1550 enrichment broths were spiked with various levels of E. coli 0157:H7 (10 exp1 to 10 exp9 CFU/ml) to directly compare the Reveal (Neogen), RapidChek (SDI), SinglePath (Merck), Transia (Diffchamb), and VIP (BioControl) LFD tests, and the BAX MP (Qualicon) PCR assay. Reveal and SinglePath had the highest number of false positives (p<0.05) when compared to the other 3 LFD tests. The BAX MP had fewer false positives (p<0.05) when compared to the LFD tests. The BAX MP detected E. coli O157:H7 in spiked enrichment broths at 10 exp3 CFU/ml, whereas the LFD tests detected the pathogen at 10 exp5 CFU/ml. There was no difference in the false negative rate (P< 0.05) for the BAX MP, Reveal, RapidChek or Transia tests. The costs of the four LFD and BAX tests are within 10% of each other. Implementing the BAX MP for screening E. coli O157:H7 in food could reduce the number of false-positive screening results and, in turn, this would reduce the amount of resources and time needed to process multiple samples.