| dc.description.abstract | Escherichia albertii is an emerging foodborne enteropathogen. It was first isolated in 1991 from a 9-month-old febrile Bangladeshi girl with diarrhea, and retrospectively found to be the causative agent in a human foodborne disease outbreak occurring at the end of May 2011 in Kumamoto, Japan. Previous phenotypic, biochemical, genetic, and microbiological studies have misidentified this under-researched bacterial foodborne pathogen, and this has impeded accurate assessment by food safety scientists and epidemiologists of the burden borne by this organism to U.S. and/or global food safety. Despite enjoying increased attention paid to its pathogenesis, global dissemination, and antimicrobial resistance capacity, this foodborne pathogen remains difficult to identify from human foods. The primary objective of this study was to develop and test a selective and differential plating medium for the isolation of E. albertii from enteric pathogens commonly transmitted via fresh poultry meat, namely E. coli and Salmonella enterica. MacConkey agar was supplemented with α-D-+-melibiose and the lactose analogue X-gal and utilized to differentially enumerate E. albertii, Salmonella, and E. coli from inoculated ground chicken meat. The medium, MXgMac agar, differentiated the inoculated pathogens with a greater degree of efficiency than did the previously developed E. albertii-selective medium xylose–rhamnose–melibiose (XRM) MacConkey agar, based on differential usage of the lactose analogue and melibiose. Chicken-derived feces and litter samples were subsequently tested using the medium and found not to contain E. albertii by 16S rRNA gene amplification. In conclusion, MXgMac agar facilitates improved differential recovery of E. albertii and other enteric pathogens from poultry meat versus other E. albertii selective/differential media. It is hoped that this novel cultural medium could be utilized to explore further this pathogen’s virulence mechanisms and potentials, nutrient utilization, stress tolerance capacity, and their regulation. | |
