Research Note: Isolation of Arizona from Specimens Grossly Contaminated with Competitive Bacteria

Abstract

SUMMARY Culture of turkey litter might be a useful means of detecting insidious arizona infections. Such specimen materials are usually grossly contaminated with competitive flora, which complicates the isolation of arizonae that are present in low numbers. Studies with several artificial systems designed to resemble infected litter had the following results: a) Selenite broth containing 1% sodium selenite and incubated at 43 C for 48 hr produced significantly more arizona isolations than any other single test employed (P<0.01); b) Individual use of either tetrathionate broth incubated at 35 C (TB35) or standard selenite F broth (0.4% sodium selenite) incubated at 43 C (SB43) yielded more isolations than standard selenite F broth incubated at 35 C (P<0.01); c) Combined results from concurrent use of TB35 and SB43 produced statistically more arizona isolations than the use of either medium individually (P<0.01).