%0 Journal Article %A Chapman, P. A. %A Wright, D. J. %A Siddons, C. A. %T A comparison of immunomagnetic separation and direct culture for the isolation of verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli O157 from bovine faeces %D 1994 %J Journal of Medical Microbiology, %V 40 %N 6 %P 424-427 %@ 1473-5644 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/00222615-40-6-424 %I Microbiology Society, %X Summary Enrichment culture (EC) in modified buffered peptone water followed by immunomagnetic separation (IMS) with magnetic beads coated with an antibody against Escherichia coli 0157 (Dynabeads anti-is. coli O157; Dynal, Oslo) was compared with direct culture on cefixime rhamnose sorbitol MacConkey agar (CR-SMAC) and cefixime tellurite sorbitol MacConkey agar (CT-SMAC) for the isolation of E. coli O157 from bovine faeces. When used to examine bovine faecal suspensions inoculated with 12 different strains of E. coli O157, EC-IMS was c. 100-fold more sensitive for detection of the organism than direct culture on either medium. During monitoring of a dairy herd, E. coli O157 was isolated from 84 (8·2 %) of 1024 rectal swabs taken from cattle over a 4-month period; 23 (27·4 % of the 84 strains were isolated by both direct culture and IMS (15 of the 23 were isolated on both media, five on CT-SMAC only and three on CR-SMAC only), whereas 61 (72·6%) strains were isolated by IMS only. IMS is a sensitive and simple technique for the isolation of E. coli O157 from bovine faecal samples and should prove useful in elucidating further the epidemiology of this organism. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-40-6-424