Development of a surface adhesion immunofluorescent technique for the rapid detection of Salmonella spp. from meat and poultry

A rapid method based on bacterial adhesion was developed for the detection of Salmonella in an enriched meat system. Minced beef samples inoculated wi th Salm. enteritidis (10 cfu g(-1)) were incubated overnight (18 h) at 37 d egrees C in buffered peptone water. Salmonella enteritidis cells were isola ted from the enriched meat sample by surface adhesion onto a polycarbonate membrane attached to a glass slide. The organisms attached to this polycarb onate membrane were subsequently visualized using immunofluorescent microsc opy. The technique had a detection level of log(10) 3.5 Salmonella ml(-1). The surface adhesion immunofluorescent technique correlated well with Salmo nella plate counts (r(2) = 0.99). Application of the rapid method to retail beef and poultry samples (n = 100) confirmed the correlation between this technique and traditional microbiological procedures. Thirty-one retail sam ples were reported positive for Salmonella species. No false positives or n egatives were recorded for the rapid method.