Reveal for Salmonella test system

The Reveal for Salmonella (RSS) test system is a presumptive qualitative test that detects the presence of Salmonella organisms in foods within 21 h total testing time, allowing the user to release negative products 24 h earlier than when using other rapid test kits. Foods are enriched with a proprietary resuscitation medium called Revive and then selectively enriched with either Selenite Cystine or Rappaport-Vassiliadis selective media. The enriched culture is used to inoculate the RSS detection device, which initiates a lateral flow through a reagent zone containing anti-Salmonella antibodies conjugated to colloidal gold particles that capture antigens present in the culture. The antigen-antibody complex migrates farther and is captured by an additional anti-Salmonella antibody, causing the colloidal gold to precipitate and form a visual line, indicating a positive result. A procedural control line also will form regardless of the presence of Salmonella organisms to indicate the test is working properly. Existing AOAC Official Methods for Salmonella organisms require a 48 h enrichment before testing. Hence, a food product has to be held before release, adding extra cost to the company and the consumer. The RSS test system was evaluated by quantitative spiking studies. Although AOAC encourages inclusion of naturally contaminated foods, almost all microbiological AOAC validation studies have been performed with artificially contaminated foods for absolute control over the study. The RSS test system is designed to test many food types for Salmonella organisms and has a limit of detection of 5-10 colony-forming units (cfu)/25 g with a false-negative rate of < 1% and a false-positive rate of < 5.0%. It showed an 81% overall agreement with the traditional procedure of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety Inspection Service.