Storage effects on bacterial concentration: determination of impinger and filter samples

Abstract

Effects of storage on the colony recovery of airborne bacterial samples were evaluated in a laboratory test chamber. Escherichia coli cells and Bacillus subtilis spores were generated by a Collison three-jet nebulizer. Bioaerosol samples were collected by three sampling methods, AGI-30 impingers, Nuclepore filtration and elution methods, and gelatin filters. Effects of storage time was determined by the ratio, C t /C 0, where C t and C 0 were the CFU concentrations of the simultaneously collected samples stored for t and 0 h, respectively. The effect of storage temperature was also studied for AGI-30 samples stored at 25 and 4°C. For impinger samples, it was demonstrated that the bioefficiency of bacterial bioaerosols could survive in the impinger fluid, and even bud more cells at room temperature. In addition, the inhibition effect of refrigerated samples was observed. Therefore, we suggest that samples collected by an impingement method should be refrigerated and processed as soon as possible to avoid the increase of bacterial culturability. Moreover, the effect of storage time on filtration collection for B. subtilis spores was demonstrated to be insignificant. However, E. coli recovery from filters was demonstrated to decrease as storage time increased. It was concluded that the recovery would not decrease during storage if bioefficiencies of the sampling methods were excellent, for example, using filters to collect B. subtilis spores or impingers to collect E. coli cells.