Comparing the mannitol-egg yolk-polymyxin agar plating method to the three tube most probable number method for enumeration of bacillus cereus spores in raw and high-temperature-short-time pasteurized milk

Master of ScienceFood Science Institute- Animal Sciences and IndustryKelly J. K. GettyThe Food and Drug Administration’s Bacteriological Analytical Manual recommends two enumeration methods for Bacillus spp.: 1) standard plating method using mannitol-egg yolk-polymyxin (MYP) agar and 2) most probable number (MPN) method with tryptic soy broth supplemented with 0.1% polymyxin sulfate. Preliminary research evaluated three inoculum preparation methods using EZ-Spore™ B. cereus pellets. Two methods involved EZ-Spore™ B. cereus pellets that were dissolved in deionized (DI) water, grown in brain heart infusion broth with manganese sulfate, and then heated to produce spores. The third inoculum preparation method of dissolving EZ-Spore™ pellets only in DI water was the most efficient due to 100% spores being present in the inoculum. Preliminary research also determined that MPN method recovered greater (p0.05) were observed among sampling times so data was pooled for overall mean values for each treatment. The overall B. cereus population mean of pooled sampling times for MPN method (2.59 log CFU/mL) was greater (p