Development and evaluation of a multiplex PCR for simultaneous detection of five foodborne pathogens

AIMS: To develop a rapid multiplex PCR method for simultaneous detection of five major foodborne pathogens (Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella Enteritidis and Shigella flexneri, respectively). METHODS AND RESULTS: Amplification by PCR was optimized to obtain high efficiency. Sensitivity and specificity assays were investigated by testing different strains. With a multipathogen enrichment, multiplex PCR assay was able to simultaneously detect all of the five organisms in artificially contaminated pork samples. The developed method was further applied to retail meat samples, of which 80% were found to be positive for one or more of these five organisms. All the samples were confirmed by traditional culture methods for each individual species. CONCLUSIONS: This study reported a rapid multiplex PCR assay using five primers sets for detection of multiple pathogens. Higher consistency was obtained between the results of multiplex PCR and traditional culture methods. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: This work has developed a reliable, useful and cost-effective multiplex PCR method. The assay performed equally as well as the traditional cultural method and facilitated the sensitive detection both in artificially contaminated and naturally contaminated samples.