[Evaluation of the usefulness of the latex test for detection and identification of O-antigens of Yersinia enterocolitica and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis].

In the study latex reagents of own production were used, in which latex of 0.9 microns particle diameter was coated with globulins salted out from rabbit sera against Y. enterocolitica groups 03, 05, 06, 08 and 09, and Y. pseudotuberculosis groups I and III. The study was carried out with five standard strains of Y. enterocolitica representing groups 03, 05, 06, 08 and 09, two standard strains of Y. pseudotuberculosis representing group antigens I and III, and 110 strains identified as Yersinia organisms, including 83 strains of Y. enterocolitica, 12 - Y. pseudotuberculosis, 7 - Y. frederiksenii, 4 - Y. intermedia, 2 - Y. kristensenii, and 2 strain of unknown species. Besides that, 54 laboratory strains of Enterobacteriaceae not belonging to Yersinia genus were studied. Latex test was done with bacterial suspensions of 6 x 10(8) cell/ml density of standard Yersinia strains and laboratory strains of Enterobacteriaceae, and with 110 Yersinia strains cultured in broth and peptone water media with tryptophan 0.1%. It was found that the prepared latex reagents reacted in the agglutination test on slide only with the suspensions of homologus. Yersinia organisms but not with suspensions of other Enterobacteriaceae. Among 83 strains identified as Y. enterocolitica 24 belonged to group 03, 19 to 05, 10 to 06, 2 to 08, 2 to 09. In the 12 strains identified as Y. pseudotuberculosis 9 belonged to group I and 2 to group III. The study showed that the latex reagents prepared by us can be used for identification of O-antigen of Yersinia organism immediately in liquid media.