Application of liquid suspension chip technique in Salmonella serotyping

ObjectiveTo understand the effect and applicability of liquid suspension array Salmonella serotyping assay (SSA) in serotyping of Salmonella isolates from food risk surveillance in Heilongjiang province.

MethodsThe traditional slide agglutination method was used for the serotyping of 451 Salmonella isolates, SSA kit was used to detect Salmonella O antigen, H antigen and AT antigen genes of 256 strains of these Salmonella isolates.

ResultsA total of 249 Salmonella isolates could be completely serotyped by SSA kit. The consistent rate between SSA and slide agglutination method was above 96% . Seven of 44 serotypes with O or H antigens were not detected by SSA kit and other 37 serotypes could be successfully serotyped by SSA kit. Fifteen Salmonella isolates could not be serotyped by slide agglutination method, but 10 of them could be successfully serotyped by SSA kit.

ConclusionSalmonella serotyping assay kit can be used for serotyping of most food-borne Salmonella in Heilongjiang. It has high consistency with traditional serotyping method and has the characteristics of high throughput, high speed and high accuracy. SSA kit could be considered as routine serotyping of Salmonella especially in the response to outbreaks of food-borne Salmonella infection and food risk surveillance, it is preferred for rapid serotyping.