bStrains from recent selleck products Salmonella outbreaks. Differentiation of live cells from live/dead cell mixtures A set of 10-fold dilutions of live cells ranging from 3 × 101 to 3 × 106 CFU was treated with PMA or without PMA to differentiate live cells from dead cells. A progressive trend in C T values that was in a reciprocal relationship with the live cell numbers in the cell mixtures was observed in Figure 2 (purple bars). This downward trend in C T values was in a reciprocal relationship with the real number of live cells in the mixtures in spite of the presence of a large number of dead cells. These data demonstrated that

the C T values on the cell mixtures preferentially reflected the amount of DNA of the live cells in the mixtures amplified during the qPCR reaction. In contrast, the C T values of the untreated cell mixtures Quisinostat were close together and failed to reflect the real number of live

cells in the cell mixtures in Figure 2 (blue bars). Figure 2 Discrimination of live Salmonella cells from live/dead cell mixtures. Dead cells at concentration of 3 × 106 CFU/g were mixed with different number of live cells as indicated and treated with PMA or without PMA. AG-881 Results were the average of three independent assays with triplicates ± standard deviation. Detection of live salmonella cells from spiked spinach and beef The PMA-qPCR assay was applied to detect DNA from live Salmonella cells in spiked spinach samples. The results showed that the C T values of spinach samples were reversely

correlated with the inoculated Salmonella live cell numbers and duration of enrichment (Figure 3A). Samples inoculated with 3 × 101 and 3 × 102 CFU/g of cells IKBKE and without (0-h) enrichment yielded C T values >35 either with PMA treatment or without PMA treatment (0-h), which were generally considered as negative results for qPCR. However, the sample inoculated with 3 × 103 CFU/g of cells at 0-h enrichment was positive for Salmonella with C T values of 32.48 and 31.74 with or without PMA treatment. The samples with 3 × 101, 3 × 102, and 3 × 103 CFU/g of cells at 4-h enrichment were positive for Salmonella with C T values of 33.98, 30.89, and 27.71 with PMA treatment and 32.91, 28.84, and 26.71 without PMA treatment, respectively. Samples with any concentrations (3 × 101-103 CFU/g) of Salmonella cells at 8-h or longer enrichment were positive for Salmonella either with or without PMA treatment (Figure 3A). Figure 3 Detection of live Salmonella cells spiked in spinach by PMA qPCR. Spinach samples were inoculated with 3 × 101 CFU/g, 3 × 102 CFU/g and 3 × 103 CFU/g of live cells, respectively (A); spinach samples were inoculated 3 × 107 dead cells/g and with 3 × 101 CFU/g, 3 × 102 CFU/g, and 3 × 103 CFU/g of live cells, respectively, as indicated (B). Spinach samples were incubated at 35°C up to 24 h. Incubated samples were collected at different time points and treated with PMA or without PMA before DNA extraction.