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. 1985 Jun;49(6):1374–1378. doi: 10.1128/aem.49.6.1374-1378.1985

Probability of recovering pathogenic Escherichia coli from foods.

W E Hill, J L Ferreira, W L Payne, V M Jones
PMCID: PMC241731  PMID: 3893320

Abstract

The probability of recovering pathogenic Escherichia coli from food by the Bacteriological Analytical Manual method was determined by the effects of several factors: the number of strains per food, the ability of pathogenic strains to survive enrichment, and the frequency of plasmid loss during enrichment. Biochemical patterns indicated the presence of about six E. coli strains per food sample. About half of the strains isolated from humans did not survive enrichment. Among those which grew, plasmid loss, as determined by gel electrophoresis and DNA colony hybridization, ranged from 20 to 95%. The combined effects of failure to survive enrichment and plasmid loss decreased the relative numbers of these strains and reduced the chance of detecting pathogens. To counteract this tendency and obtain a 90 to 95% probability off recovering a given pathogenic strain, 40 to 50 colonies per food sample should be picked during the routine testing of foods.

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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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