The rapid estimation of microbial contamination of raw meat by measurement of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Bacteria were separated from raw meat homogenate by a simple 3-stage process. Centrifugation (10 s at 2000 g) removed coarse particles; stirring with the cation exchange resin Bio-Rex 70 removed smaller particles; and filtration through 0.22 .mu.m membranes removed soluble materials. By this process 70-80% of the microbial populations of meat homogenates were consistently isolated on the filters. A linear relationship was found between log microbial ATP and log colony count of meat over the range 105-109 colony-forming units (cfu)/g. The value of ATP/cfu for meat samples was within the range previously reported for pure cultures. Thus, ATP extracted from the filters originated from bacteria in the meat samples. Several samples can be analyzed simultaneously in 20-25 min. The variability associated with estimates of colony counts and ATP levels was determined.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: