Quantifying the sources of Salmonella on dressed carcasses of pigs based on serovar distribution.

Salmonella serotyping data, qualitatively described by van Hoek et al. (2012), were used to quantify potential sources of Salmonella in a Dutch pig slaughterhouse. Statistical tests to compare per-day Salmonella prevalence and serotyping data from multiple points in the chain were used to find transmission pathways. A statistical model based on serotyping data was developed to attribute Salmonella on dressed carcasses to the most likely source. Approximately two-third of dressed carcasses carrying Salmonella on the medial surface had been contaminated by house flora. For carcasses carrying Salmonella on the distal surface, transient Salmonella from incoming pigs was a more important source. The relevance of the different sources of Salmonella varied within and between sampling days. Results were compared to those of another modeling approach, in which Salmonella concentration data from the same samples were used (Smid et al., 2012). They mostly agreed. The approach chosen by an individual slaughterhouse depends on the data that are collected.

Development of a novel, simple and rapid molecular identification system for clinical Candida species.

Identification of clinical yeast isolates causing candidiasis is routinely performed by commercial yeast identification systems based on biochemical, morphological and physiological tests. These systems require 3-5 days and the proportion of identifications that are incorrect is high. Our novel and rapid molecular identification system for clinical Candida species is based on the analysis of restriction patterns obtained from PCR-generated ribosomal DNA sequences using five restriction enzymes. A software package (CandID) was designed to include a database of restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns for 29 Candida species. For 'in-house' validation, 122 clinical isolates that had previously identified in clinical laboratories were typed by this system. These clinical isolates were also independently re-identified by the API 20C AUX system. The ribosomal DNA RFLP database in the context of supporting analytical software allowed simple and rapid (1 work day) identification.