Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Meat Safety and Quality » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #377805
Research Project: Mitigation Approaches for Foodborne Pathogens in Cattle and Swine for Use During Production and Processing

Location: Meat Safety and Quality

Title: Validation of high-resolution melting assays for the detection of virulent strains of Escherichia coli O26 and O111 in beef and pork enrichment broths

Author
item VELEZ, FRANK - Florida State University
item Bosilevac, Joseph - Mick
item SINGH, PRASHANT - Florida State University

Submitted to: Food Control
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/27/2021
Publication Date: 4/20/2021
Citation: Velez, F.J., Bosilevac, J.M., Singh, P. 2021. Validation of high-resolution melting assays for the detection of virulent strains of Escherichia coli O26 and O111 in beef and pork enrichment broths. Food Control. 128. Article 108123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2021.108123.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2021.108123

Interpretive Summary: Sensitive and accurate tests are needed to detect Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) contaminated meat because STEC are dangerous pathogens. O26 and O111 are two types of dangerous STEC, but there are safe non-illness causing E. coli of these types that produce false positive tests. Therefore, we designed and reported two new tests that can detect and distinguish the pathogenic STEC-O26 and STEC-O111 from the non-pathogen O26 and O111 E. coli. In this report, the two tests were compared to the official method used by regulators on real-world samples collected from pork and beef. Results showed that these two tests more accurately identified samples containing non-pathogens than the official method.

Technical Abstract: Extensive validation of diagnostic assays using widely collected surveillance samples is clitical for developing pathogen detection assays. The detection of potentially virulent E. coli strains is critical to the red meat industry. We previously developed two high-resolution melting (HRM) assays for detecting potentially virulent and avirulent E. coli 026 and 0111 strains. Assays were validated using enriched beef (n = 36) and pork (n = 36) samples collected as part of a U.S. federal regulatory surveillance program. Data from this study showed more than 90% sensitivity and specificity for both the HRM assays, demonstrating suitability for the red meat industry and regulatory agencies.