Environmental monitoring of waterborne Campylobacter: evaluation of the Australian standard and a hybrid extraction-free MPN-PCR method

摘要: Campylobacter is the leading agent of diarrheal disease worldwide. This study evaluates a novel culture-PCR hybrid (MPN-PCR) assay for rapid enumeration spp. from estuarine and wastewater systems. To first evaluate current, culture-based, Australian standard, an inter-laboratory was conducted on 69 subsampled water samples. The proposed Most-Probable Number (MPN)-PCR method then evaluated, by analysing 147 samples collected over 2 year period. Data 14 different biological, hydrological climatic parameters were also collated to identify pathogen-environment relationships assess potential specific bias. results demonstrated that intra-laboratory performance MPN-PCR superior AS/NZS (σ = 0.7912, P < 0.001; κ 0.701, 0.001) with overall diagnostic accuracy ~94%. Furthermore, analysis both identified introduction bias during assessment effects environmental numbers.