Detection of Salmonella from chicken rinses and chicken hot dogs with the automated BAX PCR system.

The BAX system with automated PCR detection was compared with standard cultural procedures for the detection of naturally occurring and spiked Salmonella in 183 chicken carcass rinses and 90 chicken hot dogs. The automated assay procedure consists of overnight growth (16 to 18 h) of the sample in buffered peptone broth at 35 degrees C, transfer of the sample to lysis tubes, incubation and lysis of the cells, transfer of the sample to PCR tubes, and placement of tubes into the cycler-detector, which runs automatically. The automated PCR detection assay takes about 4 h after 16 to 24 h of overnight preenrichment. The culture procedure consists of preerichment, enrichment, plating, and serological confirmation and takes about 72 h. Three trials involving 10 to 31 samples were carried out for each product. Some samples were spiked with Salmonella Typhimurium, Salmonella Heidelberg, Salmonella Montevideo, and Salmonella Enteritidis at 1 to 250 cells per ml of rinse or 1 to 250 cells per g of meat. For unspiked chicken rinses, Salmonella was detected in 2 of 61 samples with the automated system and in 1 of 61 samples with the culture method. Salmonella was recovered from 111 of 122 spiked samples with the automated PCR system and from 113 of 122 spiked samples with the culture method. For chicken hot dogs, Salmonella was detected in all 60 of the spiked samples with both the automated PCR and the culture procedures. For the 30 unspiked samples, Salmonella was recovered from 19 samples with the automated PCR system and from 10 samples with the culture method. The automated PCR system provided reliable Salmonella screening of chicken product samples within 24 h.