SALMONELLAE AND THE FLUORESCENT-ANTIBODY TECHNIQUE: A CURRENT EVALUATION1

Abstract

The increased microbiological surveillance of foods by government regulatory agencies and industry has shown that salmonellae are an important cause of food-borne disease. The significance of salmonellae in food-borne disease has made it mandatory for regulatory agencies as well as industry to develop a rapid, reliable, and reproducible method for the recovery of salmonellae in feeds and foods. Standard cultural procedures have become increasingly sensitive but not without a proportional increase in the time necessary for salmonellae detection and confirmation. This test may require from 5 to 7 days elapsed time with all of the implied disadvantages. One of the most promising areas of activity is the rapid microbiological-serological technique employing an improved fluorescent-antibody procedure. While much has been done by the medical technologist, the application of this technique is relatively new in food microbiology. The published data show the method to be highly promising and possibly even more sensitive than the standard cultural procedure. This technique is not without its inherent problems. Like all methods under investigation, there are differences in procedure, validity, and interpretation of the data. These are cited, with a description and critique of the work done, in order to give the reader an opportunity to evaluate the state of the art.