Staphylococcus aureus recoveries on various brands of membrane filters.

Six commercial brands of membrane filters were compared using staphylococcus aureus obtained from pure cultures and from swimming pool water. The following brands of filters were tested: Gelman, Millipore, Nuclepore, Oxoid, Sartorius, and Selectron. Standard membrane filter (MF) procedures and m-Staphylococcus broth were used in the evaluation. Analysis of the results was performed by comparing filter recoveries to the standard plate count using the t-test and the coefficient of variation. The data revealed that recovery on Nuclepore filters was consistently lower than the other brands and showed a wider degree of variation from the mean. All organisms recovered from the pool were gram-positive cocci, and the colonies ranged from white to yellow-gold in color. Approximately 15% of both the white and yellow-gold colonies were coagulase-positive, indicating that colony color alone does not denote the presence of coagulase-positive S. aureus. Since there was no correlation between colony color of the organisms recovered on membrane filters and the presence of coagulase, the feasibility of coagulase testing only the yellow-gold colonies for bathing water analysis is questionable.