A new chromogenic agar medium for detection of potentially virulent Yersinia enterocolitica

Several outbreaks of foodborne yersiniosis have been documented and this disease continues to be source of infections transmitted through foods. The selective agars most commonly used to isolate Yersinia enterocolitica in clinical, food and environmental samples, cefsulodin-irgasan-novobiocin (CIN) and MacConkey (MAC) agars, lack the ability to differentiate potentially virulent Y. enterocolitica from other Yersinia that may be present as well as some other bacterial spp. This study proposes the use of an agar medium, Y. enterocolitica chromogenic medium (YeCM), for isolation of potentially virulent Y. enterocolitica. This agar contains cellobiose as the fermentable sugar, a chromogenic substrate and selective inhibitors for suppression of colony formation by many competing bacteria. All strains of potentially virulent Yersinia of biotypes 1B, and biotypes 2-5 formed convex, red bulls-eye colonies on YeCM that were very similar to those described for CIN agar. However, Y. enterocolitica biotype 1A and other related Yersinia formed colonies that were purple/blue on YeCM while they formed typical red bulls-eye colonies on CIN agar. When a mixture of potentially virulent Y. enterocolitica biotype 1B, Y. enterocolitica biotype 1A and 5 other bacterial species was used to artificially contaminate tofu and then spread-plated on three selective agars, Y. enterocolitica biotype 1B colonies were easily distinguished from other strains on YeCM. However, Y. enterocolitica biotype 1B colonies were indistinguishable from many other colonies on CIN and only distinguishable from those of C. freundii on MAC. When colonies were picked and identified from these agars, typical colonies from YeCM were confirmed only as Y. enterocolitica biotype 1B. Typical colonies on CIN and MAC were found to belong to several competing species and biotypes.