Monthly Archives: November 2015

Introduction Proper monitoring and control of water used to cool thermally-processed food and beverage products is essential to ensure the microbial load of this water is kept at acceptable levels. High microbial contamination in cooling water can lead to potentially dangerous food safety concerns and microbial food quality issues.

Agar, Bacteriological Agar, Bacteriological is used as a solidifying agent in microbiological culture media where specifications include good clarity and relatively free of toxic inhibitors. Agar, Bacteriological was developed to address the needs of large scale commercial and industrial applications, where good quality is required at a competitive price. Agar, Bacteriological is useful in the biotech industry and clinical applications.

By Edan Hosking, Ph.D. of Neogen Corporation: 620 Lesher Place, Lansing, Mich. 48912 U.S. and Dustin Petrik, Ph.D. of GeneSeek: 4665 Innovation Drive, Suite 120, Lincoln, Neb. 68521, U.S.

Introduction Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) are recognized as the primary cause of hemorrhagic colitis (HC) or bloody diarrhea, which can progress to the potentially fatal hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). EHEC are typified by the production of Shiga toxins (Stx). There are many serotypes of Stx-producing E. coli (STEC), but only those that have been clinically associated with HC are designated as EHEC. As a group, EHEC are a subset of STEC and comprised of pathogenic strains, of which E. coli O157:H7 is the prototypic strain.

To support microorganism growth in the laboratory, it is necessary to establish conditions that will permit organism reproduction. All microorganisms require the following to remain viable and grow on culture media: