Preliminary Study on Rapid and Simultaneous Detection of Viable O157:H7, S, and by PMA-mPCR in Food

O157:H7, , and are major foodborne pathogens that are widespread in nature and responsible for several outbreaks of food safety accidents. Thus, a rapid and practical technique (PMA-mPCR) was developed for the simultaneous detection of viable O157:H7, , and in pure culture and in a food matrix. To eliminate false positive results, propidium monoazide (PMA) was applied to selectively suppress the DNA amplification of dead cells. The results showed the optimum concentration of PMA is 5.0 µg/mL. The detection limit of this assay by mPCR was 10 CFU/mL in the culture broth, and by PMA-mPCR was 10 CFU/mL both in pure culture and a food matrix (milk and ground beef). In addition, the detection of mixed viable and dead cells was also explored in this study. The detection sensitivity ratio of viable and dead counts was less than 1:10. Therefore, the PMA-mPCR assay proposed here might provide an efficient detection tool for the simultaneous detection of viable O157:H7, , and and also have great potential for the detection and concentration assessment of VBNC cells.