Detection of pathogenic Yersinia enterocolitica in foods and water by immunomagnetic separation, nested polymerase chain reactions, and colorimetric detection of amplified DNA.

A two-step polymerase chain reaction (PCR) procedure with two nested pairs of primers specific for the yadA gene of Yersinia enterocolitica was developed. The PCR assay identified all common pathogenic serogroups (O:3, O:5,27, O:8, O:9, O:13, and O:21) from three continents and differentiated pathogenic Y. enterocolitica from Y. pseudotuberculosis and from a variety of nonpathogenic yersiniae representing 25 serogroups and four species. The performance of the method was evaluated with seeded food and water samples. We compared two procedures for sample preparation prior to PCR: one was based on immunomagnetic separation of the target bacteria from the sample, using magnetic particles coated with immunoglobulin antibodies to Y. enterocolitica serogroup O:3, and the other method consisted of a series of centrifugation steps combined with proteinase treatment. Regardless of the method used, the PCR assay was capable of detecting 10 to 30 CFU/g of meat in 10(6)-fold excess of indigenous bacteria. When the samples were enriched overnight in a nonselective medium, the sensitivity was increased to approximately 2 CFU/g, except for samples with an extremely high background flora (> 10(7) CFU/g). We compared gel electrophoretic detection of PCR products with a colorimetric detection method designated DIANA (detection of immobilized amplified nucleic acids), which enabled easy visualization of amplified fragments in a microtiter plate format with an optical density reader. DIANA and gel electrophoresis showed complete concordance in their discrimination between positive and negative samples. The combination of immunomagnetic separation, nested PCR, and DIANA makes possible the development of a fully automated analytic process which requires a minimum of laboratory manipulations.