Development of a combined PCR-culture technique for the rapid detection ofArcobacter spp. in chicken meat

A combined PCR-culture technique was developed to detect Arcobacter spp. in fresh chicken meat. Following a short selective enrichment of chicken samp les, bacterial DNA was extracted and amplified using primers targeted at th e genes encoding 16S rRNA of Arcobacter spp. The selected primers amplify a 181-bp fragment from all Arcobacter spp., whereas no PCR product is genera ted for other bacteria, including the closely related Campylobacter and Hel icobacter species. The assay was used to screen 96 retail-purchased chicken samples for the presence of Arcobacter spp. Fifty-three percent of the sam ples analysed were positive for this micro-organism. The assay is simple an d sensitive and reduces the amount of time required to positively detect Ar cobacter spp. in poultry meat.