Quantification of Salmonella spp., Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157:H7 in non-spiked food products and evaluation of real-time PCR as a diagnostic tool in routine food analysis

Abstract Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella spp. are foodborne pathogens frequently associated with foods such as poultry, ready-to-eat products, fruits and vegetables. PCR-based procedures are rapid, sensitive and accurate; in particular, real-time PCR (qPCR), which besides being an automated high-throughput technique, allows quantification of foodborne pathogens. In the present work, qPCR-based methods were applied for the quantitative detection of E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp. and L. monocytogenes in a total of 306 non-spiked food samples in a study carried out in two laboratories simultaneously. qPCR allowed the detection of the three pathogens in around …