Comparison of culture media for enrichment and isolation of Salmonella spp. from frozen Channel catfish and Vietnamese basa fillets

Abstract

Frozen fillets of Channel catfish and Vietnamese basa fish were used to compare Salmonella spp. recovery effectiveness of selective enrichment in Rappaport–Vassiliadis (RV) broth and tetrathionate broth (TT) and selective isolation on Hekteon enteric (HE) agar, xylose lysine deoxycholate (XLD) agar, and bismuth sulfite (BS) agar. Isolate confirmation was through fatty acid methyl ester analysis. Of 60 samples analyzed, 25 were found contaminated with Salmonella (42% incidence). Salmonella spp. recovery after enrichment in RV medium was 35% on HE agar, 30% on XLD agar, and 42% on BS agar. Similarly, after enrichment in TT broth, HE and XLD agars recovered 22% each and BS agar recovered 37%. No performance difference ( p > 0.05) was observed in the recovery of Salmonella using the combinations of BS, HE, and XLD agars with RV broth and BS agar with TT broth. The combination of selective enrichment in RV and selective isolation on BS gave numerically greatest isolation of Salmonella from Channel catfish and Vietnamese basa fish compared to other isolation combinations.