Abstract

Hemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 and other fecal coliform bacteria, such as species of Salmonella, could pose a serious health threat in contaminated water resources. Traditional bacterial culture methods and ELISA based assays for identification of fecal coliforms are relatively slow and ambiguous. Polymerase chain reaction of extracted DNA from such bacteria and immunomagnetic separation (IMS) methods appear promising for this application. Although PCR can be a definitive identification technique, it is relatively time consuming when compared to IMS. In this work, the IMS technique has been coupled with an electrochemiluminescence (ECL) technology to separate specific bacteria from their media and quantitatively detect the bacteria within one hour. The sensitivity of the IMS-ECL assay for E.coli O157 strain and Salmonella sp. is as low as 10 - 100 cells/mL in water samples. In addition, IMS was accomplished in dense washings of food and environmental samples followed by ECL assay. These results suggest strongly use of the IMS-ECL methodology for rapid and facile screening of various bacterial contaminations in water resources or other environmental samples for the low level presence of pathogenic coliforms.© (1995) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

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