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. 1990 Jul;56(7):2021–2024. doi: 10.1128/aem.56.7.2021-2024.1990

Colorimetric enumeration of Escherichia coli based on beta-glucuronidase activity.

M R Adams 1, S M Grubb 1, A Hamer 1, M N Clifford 1
PMCID: PMC184554  PMID: 2202252

Abstract

A medium containing a chromogenic substrate was developed for the enumeration of Escherichia coli on the basis of beta-glucuronidase activity. In this medium there was an inverse linear relationship between the log initial E. coli concentration and the time taken for the color to reach a threshold optical density of 0.05. This relationship applied even when the E. coli population contained 5% beta-glucuronidase-negative cells. Incubation at 44 degrees C reduced the time taken for color development and allowed the procedure to be used in the presence of a competitive microflora that outnumbered the E. coli population by a factor of 10(4). Sodium lauryl sulfate as an additional selective agent gave no significant improvement. In the analysis of environmental water samples, the technique gave a good correlation with a standard cultural method. The procedure shows promise as a simple method for testing the compliance of environmental samples with microbiological criteria for E. coli.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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