THE USE OF BACTERIOPHAGE-BASED SYSTEMS FOR THE SEPARATION AND CONCENTRATION OF SALMONELLA

Techniques for the separation/concentration of micro-organisms from ba ckground food matrices can be applied to increase the speed of analysi s and ease of isolation and detection of target micro-organisms. One r ecent example of such a technique is the immunomagnetic separation (IM S) procedure that has been used for the separation of specific micro-o rganisms from foods. This paper describes the use of a novel biosorben t consisting-of a Salmonella-specific bacteriophage (phage) immobilize d to a solid phase that was used for the separation and concentration of Salmonella from food materials. This work has shown that a Salmonel la-specific phage-based biosorbent could remove Salmonella from cultur e fluid and separate Salmonella from suspensions of other Enterobacter iaceae. The ease of production of phage, high affinity of phage-cell i nteraction and the ability of phage to infect host cells in heterogene ous environments indicates the potential of such a biosorbent as the b asis for a reliable separation system in food microbiological analysis .