Evaluation of Rapid Screening Platforms for Detection of Salmonella in Probiotic Cultures
Interest in the human microbiome is high, evidenced by a full-day deep dive “Gut Microbiome, Nutrition and Health” at IFT 2019. Probiotics, which are live microorganisms consumed for their health benefits, function in part by interacting with the gut microbiota. Exposing probiotics to a “kill step” destroys the live cultures. Hence, protecting probiotic consumers from pathogens depends on an effective food safety program and robust pathogen detection methods. However, pathogen detection in these products has, to date, received little attention. Accepted methods such as those in the US FDA Bacteriological Analytical Manual (BAM) are ineffective with this challenging matrix that has extremely high levels (about 1010 CFU/g) of competitive background organisms. Our objective was to compare the efficacy of commercially available pathogen screening platforms for detecting Salmonella in probiotic cultures to permit evidence-based platform selection.
Author:
Josie Greve-Peterson and David Legan