Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2006DE73B

Detection of Salmonella in Biosolids Using PCR

Institute: Delaware
Year Established: 2006 Start Date: 2006-06-01 End Date: 2007-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $1,750 Total Non-Federal Funds: $3,500

Principal Investigators: Diane Herson

Project Summary: Waste water treatment involves multiple steps with one of the ultimate goals being pathogen destruction. Salmonella species are among the pathogens of concern. Salmonella typhi causes typhoid fever and other species cause gastroenteritis. Salmonella are typically detected in biosolids using EPA method 1682; a recently proposed cultural method (5) which involves the use of a variety of media over the course of several days. Molecular methods of detection such as PCR (polymerase chain reaction), RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase PCR) and Q-PCR (quantitative PCR) take less time than the cultural method. A number of studies have been done using molecular methods as alternatives for Salmonella detection (2, 3). Standard PCR detects organisms through the amplification of specific DNA sequences. Since this method detects DNA from both living and dead cells, false positives may result. The goal of this project is to develop a short-term effective enrichment procedure to improve our ability to detect pathogens such as Salmonella in biosolids.