DETECTION OF FOODBORNE VIRUSES BY THE POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION

The health hazards caused by viruses in food products of animal origin are different from those caused by bacteria contaminated food. Conven tional methods for the detection of viruses in food are very time cons uming and usually not sufficiently sensitive to detect very low amount s of virus present. Modern methods, like nucleic acid hybridization an d polymerase chain reaction (PCR), considerably accelerate the diagnos tic procedure. The PCR allows the amplification of a specific DNA-segm ent by a factor of 10(6) or more within a few hours. We established a PCR for the detection of pseudorabies virus (PRV) in artificially cont aminated sausages. The detection level of the PCR in samples of differ ent pHs was compared with virus isolation in tissue culture. It could be shown that the PCR was less affected by extreme pH values than tiss ue culture techniques to recover the virus.