Interaction of pH and NaCl on enumeration of heat-stressed Staphylococcus aureus.

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  • 1 March 1974
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 27  (3) , 443-7
Abstract
The effect of pH level and NaCl concentrations, alone and in combination, on the enumeration of unstressed and heat-stressed cells of three strains of Staphylococcus aureus was determined. A definite narrowing of the optimum pH range for enumeration of both unstressed and heat-stressed cells was observed as the NaCl concentration was increased from 0.0 to 7.5%. Counts of unstressed cells diminished only slightly with increases in NaCl, whereas heat-stressed cells showed a marked sensitivity to NaCl concentrations of 4% and above, regardless of the pH level. Because of this sensitivity to NaCl, recoveries were far poorer than with unstressed cells at NaCl concentrations of 4% and above.