A rapid, sensitive enrichment PCR to detect Salmonella and ETEC infections in pigs

Salmonella and Escherichia coli infections, particularly enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC), are a problem in piglet production. In addition, Salmonella is a major concem in the pork industry as a carrier state can be induced post infection allowing the pathogen to spread across the pig herd, onto many carcasses at slaughter and into the human food chain. Detection methods for these pathogens are currently highly laborious, with Salmonella detection taking over 5 days to give a verified positive result. Identification of ETEC isolates involves detecting the presence of toxin or fimbriae (or their genes by PCR), particularly F4, the most common fimbriae in piglet ETEC infection. Altemative methods such as real time PCR are unable to detect low levels of infection directly from the sample. Enrichment PCR assays have been successfully implemented for the detection of pathogens in foodstuffs, however, faecal material often is inhibitory to PCR based methods