New Salmonella assay offers step change in speed and reliability - company
The France-based company said its VIDAS UP Salmonella assay uses recombinant bacteriophage proteins which “offer best-in-class specificity and sensitivity for the targeted capture and detection of Salmonella bacteria in food and environmental samples”.
The recombinant phage technique was developed by the German biotech company Hyglos GmbH and has been licensed exclusively to the French company.
It is able to detect low levels of Salmonella, with bioMerieux claiming it is among the swiftest and easiest to use tools available for the screening of the bacteria in both environmental samples and standard and large food samples.
The analysis provides a simple one-step sample preparation which cuts on laboratory time and delivers results in as little as 19 hours. This compares to reference methods that need up to three days, a company spokesman told FoodProductionDaily.com.
“Because phages are extremely host-specific, they can offer unrivalled specificity and sensitivity for the targeted capture, detection and differentiation of bacteria from a given sample,” said Dr. Lawrence Goodridge, associate professor of food microbiology, Colorado State University. “This is critical to reducing the magnitude and severity of foodborne illness caused by the consumption of foods contaminated with dangerous bacteria.”
Food safety boost
Salmonella bacteria can lead to Salmonellosis - to one of the most common global intestinal infections. Recent figures from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it has been linked to more than one million cases of foodborne illness annually. Of these cases, approximately 20,000 result in hospitalization and 378 result in death.
“Food pathogen detection methods utilizing bacteriophage technology can provide food producers with the ability to detect bacterial pathogens present in their products with unprecedented speed and reliability,” said Jean-Marc Durano, company corporate vice president for industrial microbiology.
He added: “This is critical to reducing the magnitude and severity of foodborne illness caused by the consumption of foods contaminated with dangerous bacteria.”
