Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) is a significant foodborne pathogen with great economic consequences. There has been an increased food safety concern with this organism since outbreaks of human illnesses caused by this pathogen were first reported in 1982. Therefore, developing a reliable, sensitive, and rapid assay capable of detecting E. coli O157 and the main toxins produced by STEC (i.e., Shiga toxins 1 [Stx(1)] and 2 [Stx(2)]) will directly benefit regulatory agencies by minimizing analysis time. Here, we use Luminex technology to detect multiple analytes in a single 50-ml sample. Using commercially available monoclonal antibodies coupled to carboxylated magnetic microbeads, we developed an immunoassay capable of simultaneously serotyping E. coli O157 and detecting Stx(1) and/or Stx(2). The specificity and sensitivity of this immunoassay was tested against a collection of 34 E. coli isolates belonging to various O serogroups phenotypically different for Stx. The results were compared with microplate sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and no cross-reactivity was observed for any of the monoclonal antibodies used. An increased sensitivity up to 1,000 times was observed in the microbead-based immunoassay when compared with the microplate sandwich ELISA. The results indicate that Luminex technology has the potential to simultaneously detect multiple targets without loss of specificity and/or sensitivity. A blind experiment was conducted with 48 samples of ground beef, lettuce, and milk spiked with ≤2 CFU/g E. coli. All the samples were correctly identified, with no false positives or false negatives. This microbead-based immunoassay could be extended to simultaneously detect additional foodborne pathogens and their toxic markers.

A 7-plex microbead-based immunoassay for serotyping Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli" (2013 Serotyping of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) has been contingent upon the availability of antisera. Here we describe a 7-plex microbead-based immunoassay to simultaneously serotype seven STECs (i.e., belonging to serogroups O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, O145, and O157) by the Luminex xMAP® technology. This technology presents many advantages: Its multiplexed format (up to 100 analytes) saves time, reagents, and test sample, and many regulatory agencies currently utilize this platform for other assays. In this study, a total of seventy-nine STEC strains belonging to the 7 different serogroups of interest were tested. These strains had been previously serotyped and their serogroup was confirmed by PCR. Except for one strain belonging to the O111 serogroup, nearly all strains (i.e., 98.7%; 78/79) were correctly identified on the Bio-Plex 100 instrument in less than 4 h. This newly developed microbead-based immunoassay could be extended to include other STEC serogroups, virulence factors, and/or bacterial species.Published by Elsevier B.V.

Traditionally, serotyping of Escherichia coli has been performed via slide agglutination methods using antisera. More recently, multiplex immunoassays and "molecular serotyping" via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) have been validated for this purpose. In this study, the serogroups of 161 Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) strains isolated from fecal samples of California cattle were typed by conventional methods using antisera as well as two newly developed multiplex PCR- and antibody-based microbead assays using the Luminex technology. Using the Luminex assays, we were capable of serotyping 11 STEC isolates that were previously determined untypeable for the O antigen by conventional methods using antisera. Except for 14 isolates, results from the 2 Luminex assays agreed.

Conventional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is a gold standard for screening antibodies and testing for protein or antigen presence. A significant limitation of this assay resides in the fact that only one analyte can be assessed per microplate well. Here, we describe and investigate a new technology consisting of an automated ELISA system in which up to 10 analytes can be measured within one single well, thus improving productivity, accuracy, and repeatability by reducing the amount of human labor required. Another strength of the platform is that a user can load any necessary sets/subsets of beads to perform required assays, with improved flexibility compared to manufactured-loaded arrays for multiplex analysis. We also demonstrate that this system can be used to determine the pathogenicity (i.e., presence of Shiga toxins) and serotype (i.e., Escherichia coli O157) of E. coli isolates.