Evaluation of culture media for enrichment and isolation of Shigella sonnei and S. flexneri

The performance of Gram-negative (GN) broth with (10 μg/ml) and without novobiocin, Shigella broth (SB) with 0.5 and 3.0 μg/ml novobiocin, all incubated at 37 °C (SB with 3.0 μg/ml novobiocin also at 42 °C) and buffered brilliant green bile glucose (EE) broth with 1.0 μg/ml novobiocin incubated at 37 and 42 °C were evaluated for resuscitation and growth of Shigella sonnei and S. flexneri (eight strains; unstressed, chill-stressed and acid-stressed) and non-shigellae (11 strains). GN broth with or without novobiocin supported significantly less growth of Shigella sp. No significant differences in growth of shigellae were obtained between the other culture media. Performance depended more on the Shigella strain used. None of the tested media were significantly superior for suppressing the competitive flora. vity and selectivity of MacConkey agar (MAC), tergitol-7 agar (T7), desoxycholate citrate agar (DCA), xylose lysine desoxycholate agar (XLD), Salmonella Shigella agar and Hektoen enteric agar (HEA) were determined by ecometric testing. HEA confirmed to be a high selective medium for both non-shigellae and stressed Shigella sp. Klebsiella sp., Enterobacter sp., Citrobacter sp., Salmonella sp. and the Escherichia strains can mask the presence of shigellae. ro competition experiments and experiments with artificially contaminated foods showed higher resistance of S. sonnei than S. flexneri towards the stress imposed by the food matrix and its indigenous flora. Reliable detection, however, of shigellae in foods with the current enrichment and isolation media was not achieved.