US Scientists Rapidly Test E.coli with Infrared Spectroscopy

According to U.S. Food Safety News, a Food Science Research Institute at Pudu University has proposed a method using infrared spectroscopy that can be used to detect and distinguish different strains of E. coli, and this method is more advanced than the existing methods. fast.

Lisa Mauer, associate professor of food science at Pudu University, said that this new method can distinguish between different E. coli strains, including the O157:H7 and non-O157:H7 strains, which are pathogenic bacteria.

This test method makes the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service more accessible to six other types of E. coli strains other than the so-called “heterobacteria” type E. coli O157:H7. These non-O157:H7 strains include: 026, 045, 0111, 0121, 0145, and 0103.

Only the E. coli O157:H7 strain is generally considered as a “mixed fungus” in food. Although the other six strains are rarer, there are 37,000 infections and 30 deaths.

This Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy method uses a culture time of 6 hours and a detection time of approximately 1 hour as compared with the conventional method in which cells are cultured in the laboratory for 48 hours. Even with the presence of other bacteria in beef, we can detect and distinguish different E. coli strains.

According to the researchers, there are two ways to obtain bacteria from the surface of beef: one is the antibody capture method, which attaches to the antibody on the magnetic bead, and the result can be obtained in about 4 hours; the second method is the filtration method, which takes about 1 hour. The results.

This method can even distinguish between dead and live bacteria, which can be concluded when energy is not absorbed and reflected back. This performance is currently not possible with this type of detection method.

It is reported that this method was previously used to detect melamine in foods.