Development of a selective broth medium for the detection of injured Campylobacter jejuni by capacitance monitoring.

The purpose of these studies was to develop a conductimetric method for the rapid detection of Campylobacter jejuni. Numerous basal medium components were analyzed to develop a growth-enhancing broth medium for detection of freeze-injured Campylobacter cells using a conductimetric system. The final medium was composed of a modified Campy-Line agar from which the agar and triphenyltetrazolium chloride were removed and the amino acid, L-arginine was added. Pure isolates of C. jejuni. (frozen and thawed to produce stressed cells) were utilized to test the detection methodology. Monitoring of significant changes in the capacitance signal was found suitable for detection of Campylobacter proliferation. Using stressed pure cultures, Campylobacter growth was repeatedly detected at very low inoculum levels (about one cell per well). There was a direct linear relationship between detection times (DTs) and the initial inoculum level. For example, using a single strain, the mean DT (n = 20) at the 10 CFU/ml inoculum level was 28.6 h, with 100% of the inoculated wells detecting. The mean DTs at the 100, 1,000, and 10,000 CFU/ml inoculum levels were 24.9, 21.4, and 17.0 h, respectively. This study demonstrates that conductimetric methods can be utilized for the rapid detection of C. jejuni.