AUTOMATIC FOOD-PATHOGEN DETECTION ON A CENTRIFUGAL MICROFLUIDIC CARTRIDGE IN A COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE PCR THERMOCYCLER

For the first time facilitated polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based detection of food-pathogens with a centrifugal microfluidic cartridge (GeneSlice) is demonstrated in a field-trial. The ready-to-use GeneSlice [1] comprises 4 reaction chambers with pre-loaded primers and probes for the detection of Clostridium perfringens, Staphylococcus aureus, Vibrio cholerae and Shigella flexneri and can be operated in a commercially available real-time PCR thermocycler as a “microfluidic App” [2]. Selectivity of the assays and absence of cross contaminations between wells was confirmed. In a field-trial pathogen spiked enrichment broths from six food-matrices were tested. 14 out of 15 GeneSlices demonstrate successful amplification concordant with manual reference PCR making prior DNA extraction superfluous. Automated analysis of 6 GeneSlices took less than 2 hours with manual preparation time reduced from 30 to 10 minutes.