[Rapid bioassay of gentamicin by bioluminescence (author's transl)]

Assay of bacterial intracellular ATP levels using the firefly bioluminescence system allows a very sensitive monitoring of bacterial growth. This test has been used in some laboratories fro performing a rapid microbiological assay of the concentration of antibiotics in the serum of treated patients. Rapidity of antibiotic determination is especially important in the case of antibiotics for which therapeutic concentration are close to toxic concentration. In the present work we have used the bacterial strain Klebsiella edwardsii var. atlantae for a rapid assay of gentamicin in the serum. We show that this assay is very accurate in the range of therapeutic serum concentrations. It may be readily performed in a routine laboratory with commercially available ATP extractors and luciferine-luciferose mixtures. This assay has been shown to correlate optimally with the classical plate diffusion assay (r = 0,983) and to be independent of the presence of beta-lactams in the serum.