Effect of protein coating of flocked swabs on the collection and release of clinically important bacteria.

Clinical swab heads are often coated with biopolymers to improve the recovery and survival of organisms. To assess the effect of swab head material coating, water absorption capacity and capture and release characteristics of four pathogenic bacteria from protein coated and uncoated flocked swabs were determined. Demonstration of no uniformly higher recovery of all test bacteria from coated swabs over their corresponding uncoated swabs suggest importance of physicochemical properties of swab tip material compared with biopolymer coating, for swab selection for clinical applications.