Detection of Salmonella in Meat Products by Polymerase Chain Reaction

Abstract

A total of 100 different meat samples 50 grams from each sample were chosen randomly including raw meat products as minced meat and sausage and treated meat products as luncheon and basterma (25 samples from each) collected from several markets in two regional Governorates (Cairo and Giza). Traditional bacteriological method and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tool were used to look for salmonella in these samples. Bacteriological data demonstrated the occurrence of 16%, 8%, 0% and 0% in minced meat, sausage, luncheon and basterma, respectively. PCR validation for identifying of salmonella by (invA) gene showed the same conformance of results in prevalence of that of the bacteriological isolation where it was 16%, 8%, 0% and 0% in minced meat, sausage, luncheon and basterma, respectively. Traditional bacteriological method can take two to three days to show such results and up to seven to ten days to validate them, while polymerase chain reaction proved and it is reliable, less labor, accurate and requires less effort and time comparing to traditional method.