[Comparative studies of methods of salmonella enrichment (author's transl)]

Eight different methods of salmonella enrichment were compared in two series of experiments involving 100 samples of whole-egg powder and 80 samples of frozen whole liquid egg, respectively. 66 out of a total of 100 samples of whole-egg powder had been artificially infected with varying numbers of S. typhi-murium; 60 out of 80 samples of frozen whole liquid egg were found to be naturally infected with various salmonella species. 3 of the 8 methods (Table 1) were compared within an international collaborative study with 14 laboratories in 11 countries participating. A reduction of the pre-enrichment period from 18 to 6 hours and of volumes used in pre-enrichment and selective enrichment from 10 and 100 ml, respectively to 1 and 10 ml, respectively were found to have adverse influence upon the result of isolations, in particular in the case of weakly infected samples. In contrast, extended incubation over 48 hours as well as preparation of two sub-cultures on solid selective media following incubation of enrichment cultures over 18-24 hours and 42-48 hours, respectively always resulted in a certain increase of salmonella yield which, however, exhibited gradual differences for the individual methods examined. Preparation of a 2nd sub-culture meant, in particular, a decisive improvement of the result of isolations from artificially infected samples if selenite-cystine enrichment volumes were 10 and 100 ml, respectively. The best results could be obtained by means of the following methods of enrichment: Pre-enrichment of material in buffered peptone water at 37 degrees C over 18 hours; pipetting of 10 ml inoculated and incubated pre-enriched material into 100 ml selenite-cystine or tetrathionate enrichment medium according to MULLER-KAUFFMANN; onward incubation of the enrichment culture at 43 degrees C over 48 hours; and preparation of sub-cultures on solid selective media after 24 and 48 hours. The method using tetrathionate enrichment medium was found to be most expensive, results, however, were the most consistent ones.