Abstract
Arcobacter is an aerotolerant organism similar to Campylobacter, which has been studied recently due to its implication in foodborne illness. Arcobacter has been isolated from the food supply in two primary commodities, poultry and pork. The prevalence in pork has been found to be relatively low, typically 5%, using standard isolation methods. These methods include the deBoer method, Collins method and a modified version called the Direct Collins method. In this experiment, these broth and agar systems were tested along with a relatively new method known as the Johnson-Murano (JM) method on the basis of sensitivity and efficiency of isolation. The prevalence of arcobacters was determined in ground pork from various slaughter facilities across the U.S.. Finally, a small scale study was conducted to determine whether meat fat content and/or age of the animal at slaughter would impact the prevalence of arcobacters in ground pork. Of the three methods evaluated, the JM method was superior to the others, as it was able to detect A. butzleri and A. cryaerophilus in buffer down to a level of 10¹ cells/ml. This method was also the most successful in consistently detecting these organisms in ground pork in various trials. Evaluation of these methods in ground pork samples obtained from various plants revealed that 64/200 samples were contaminated with arcobacters as detected by the JM method, compared with 52/200 as detected by the direct Collins method. Thus, given its accuracy and sensitivity, as well as its procedural ease and time saving capabilities, the JM method was superior to the others at detecting arcobacters from ground pork. Using this method the level of contamination was found to vary among plants, ranging from 0 to 68% prevalence, with 32% overall for all four plants tested. Low-fat ground pork had a higher contamination frequency (20%) when compared with high-fat pork (4%). Results also showed that meat from younger animals was more frequently contaminated than that from older animals.
Ohlendorf, Dawn Suzanne (2000). The comparison of three methods for isolation of Arcobacter spp. in raw ground pork. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -2000 -THESIS -O34.