ABSTRACT
Rapid isolation of Salmonella from food is essential for faster typing and source tracking in an outbreak. The objective of this study was to investigate a rapid isolation method that would augment the standard U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Bacteriological Analytical Manual (BAM) method. Food samples with low microbial load, including egg salad and ice cream, moderately high-microbial-load tomatoes, and high-microbial-load ground beef were intentionally inoculated with 2 to 48 CFU of Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium. The samples were preenriched in buffered peptone water for 6 h, and then selectively concentrated by immunomagnetic separation and plated for isolation on xylose-lysine-desoxycholate agar: the 6IX method. Salmonella Typhimurium was presumptively identified from approximately 97% of the low-microbial-load and moderately high-microbial-load samples by the 6IX method 2 days before the BAM standard method for isolation of Salmonella. In 49% of the beef samples, Salmonella Typhimurium was presumptively identified 1 or 2 days earlier by the 6IX method. Given the inocula used, our data clearly indicated that for most of the food samples tested, with the exception of ground beef, Salmonella Typhimurium could be isolated two laboratory days earlier with the 6IX method compared with the BAM method. In conclusion, this 6IX method may expedite Salmonella isolation and, therefore, has the potential to accelerate strain tracking for epidemiological analysis in a foodborne outbreak.