1887

Abstract

has emerged as a pathogen or commensal in food animals. There is overlap between isolates from animals, retail meats and humans, suggesting that animals may be a reservoir. For direct detection of variant strains in faecal samples of symptomatic and asymptomatic animals, we developed and validated a new TaqMan real-time PCR (TMrtPCR) assay targeting the , and genes. We compared it with the enrichment culture method and with two real-time PCR (rtPCR) assays, BrtPCR and PCRFast, targeting and /, respectively. All ten tested toxinotypes, except one (XIa) with PCRFast and two (X, XIa) with BrtPCR, were detected with the test assays. A total of 340 (100 %) samples were cultured and amplified with TMrtPCR. Results correlated in 75.3 % samples. Forty (11.8 %) samples were culture positive/TMrtPCR negative, possibly because of the low numbers of bacteria in the samples or because of DNA extraction failure. Forty (11.8 %) samples were TMrtPCR positive/culture negative. Among 79 samples included in the rtPCR assays/culture comparison, 50.6 % were in complete concordance. The results showed that TMrtPCR performed better than BrtPCR and PCRFast, and 67 % of the culture-positive samples were TMrtPCR positive in comparison to 40 % of the samples positive in BrtPCR and 7 % of the samples positive in PCRFast, respectively. Another advantage of TMrtPCR over BrtPCR and PCRFast is its ability to detect a binary toxin gene. Therefore, the TMrtPCR results can provide the first information about the toxin type present in the sample. According to the results of our study, TMrtPCR could be a preferred screening method for the rapid detection of in animal faecal samples, although an enrichment culture has to be performed for the specimens with negative or inconclusive rtPCR results.

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2011-08-01
2024-03-29
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