Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Exhibit Hall D (Indiana Convention Center)
Erin Crowley, Q Laboratories, Inc., Cincinnati, OH
Patrick Bird, Q Laboratories, Inc., Cincinnati, OH
Jonathan Flannery, Q Laboratories, Inc., Cincinnati, OH
M. Joseph Benzinger, Q Laboratories, Inc., Cincinnati, OH
Megan Boyle, Q Laboratories, Inc., Cincinnati, OH
James Agin, Q Laboratories, Inc., Cincinnati, OH
David Goins, Q Laboratories, Inc., Cincinnati, OH
Gregory Devulder, bioMérieux, Hazelwood, MO
Hari Prakash Dwivedi, bioMérieux, Hazelwood, MO
Introduction: Bacillus cereus is a Gram positive, aerobic spore-forming bacterium that when reaching levels >10
6 cells/g can lead to food poisoning.
B. cereus has been isolated from prepared foods that have been improperly stored, as well as being incriminated in past foodborne outbreaks. The TEMPO BC assay is an automated enumeration method, that allows for the quantification of
Bacillus cereus group in as little as 22 hours. The method works by combining samples with a selective culture medium containing a substrate which, when reduced, emits a signal detected by the TEMPO reader. The inoculated medium is introduced into a test card containing 48 wells across 3 different volumes. Depending on the number and size of positive wells, the TEMPO system deduces the number of
Bacillus cereus group present in the sample according to a calculation based on the Most Probable Number (MPN) method.
Purpose: The purpose of this extension was to compare the new method to the FDA/BAM Chapter 14 for the enumeration of Bacillus cereus in a broad range of foods.
Methods: In this evaluation, 129 different food products or ingredients were enumerated for the presence of B. cereus. More than half of the samples were evaluated for the presence of naturally occurring B. cereus. Test portions were diluted 1:10 using Butterfield’s phosphate buffer and analyzed by the TEMPO BC or FDA/BAM method. Test portions tested by the new method were analyzed at 22.5 ± 0.5 hours. The results of the TEMPO enumeration were verified by plating the test portions onto MYP and BACARA test media.
Results: Results for the evaluation show that the new method was statistically comparable to the FDA/BAM reference method.
Significance: The new method demonstrated provided reliable, rapid and accurate results for the quantitation of Bacillus cereus group in a broad range of foods.
