Development of a new rapid method for determination of microbial contamination using luminescence imagery

Objective

As far as health is concerned, consumers microbial infection can cause serious problems and sometime even death. For this reason a microbial control is a major stage during the production and before the delivery of liquid food products and consumer medical products to guarantee their sterility.
The method used at the present time for the determination of microbial contamination are based on culturing petri dish which involved a necessary long time to obtain the results of the microbial analysis (1 day to 21 day). This fact had some incidence on the quality of the controlled product, production costs and economic values of perishable goods.

The objective of the present research is to develop a set of apparatus and reagents which will allow microbial contamination control in less than few hours and which will detect rapidly a very low number of micro-organisms using new rapid method involving a low cost equipment for microbiology testing. It will meet the requirements of the industrial partners.
A preliminary work has been done in order to define specification of the samples. A knowledge of the sample characteristics is necessary to define the first step of the project (task 1) to eliminate every particle that will prevent the filtration or some chemical components that will be inhibitors for luminescence reaction. SMEs partners brought samples that will be analysed by classical microbiological controls (cfu) and classical physico-chemical controls.
The project is based on microscopic imaging of the intracellular ATP of different micro-organisms (such bacteria, yeast's or mycelium) fixed on a filter membrane.
A bioluminescence reaction is used to visualise the ATP and the observation is carried out through a low noise integrating camera. The sensibility of the detection is high enough to enable the characterisation of single micro-organism. The following tasks will be carried out:
- Preparation of the sample.
- Preparation of bacterial membrane.
- Application of the luminescence reagents.
- Bacteria counting using cooled charged coupled device (CCD) camera.
- Design of the analysis procedure.
- On-site validation.

Fields of science

• natural sciences › biological sciences › microbiology › bacteriology
• engineering and technology › electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering › electronic engineering › sensors › optical sensors

Programme(s)

• FP4-SMT - Specific research and technological development programme in the field of standards, measurements and testing, 1994-1998

Topic(s)

• 01 - Measurements for quality European products

Call for proposal

Data not available

Funding Scheme

CRS - Cooperative research contracts

Coordinator

Routin SA

Address

Rue E. Romonet
73094 Chambery
France

Participants (10)

Axcell Biotéchnologies

France

Address

69610 Saint Genis L'argentière

Empresa das Aguas Alcalinas Medicinais de Castelo de Vioe SA

Portugal

Address

Mealhada
7321 Castelo De Vioe

Fundacion AZTI - AZTI Fundazioa

Spain

Address

S/n,txatxarramendi Ugartea Z/g
48395 Sukarrietta (Biskaia)

Links

Hospices Civils de Lyon

France

Address

3,quai Des Celestins
69002 Lyon

Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale

France

Address

59,boulevard Pinel
69394 Lyon

Institut für Tierarzneimittel Berlin GmbH

Germany

Address

321,berliner Allee
13088 Berlin

Kiviks Musteri AB

Sweden

Address

277 35 Kivik

Noviloire

France

Address

18,avenue Du Polygone
42300 Roanne

SC Federa SV

Belgium

Address

71,avenue Jean-jaurès
1030 Bruxelles

Trensum Musteri AB

Sweden

Address

Sloigatan
362 22 Tingsryd