Addressing Current Challenges in Poultry Meat Safety: Development of a Cultivation and Colony Hybridization Approach to Recover Enterotoxigenic from Broiler Chicken Carcasses.

Enterotoxigenic is one of the main causes of foodborne illness in Canada. The use of a conventional bacterial culture approach to isolate enterotoxigenic from poultry meat is common. This approach is based on the phenotype attributable to a double hemolysis phenomenon, whereas few enterotoxigenic strains of produce it, which further complicates the study of the reservoirs of this important pathogen. The objectives of the current study were to validate the ability of a digoxigenin-labeled probe to detect the gene and to validate the use of either a filtration or a direct plating approach, combined with colony hybridization to detect enterotoxigenic . Pure DNA and pure colonies of enterotoxigenic and broiler chicken carcass rinsate samples were subjected to colony hybridization. The results showed that the synthesized DNA probe can detect the gene from both DNA and pure colonies of enterotoxigenic , and from colonies grown from carcass rinsates artificially contaminated with enterotoxigenic . Our study suggests that this isolation method is a promising tool for a better understanding of the epidemiology of this zoonotic pathogen.