Simplified detection of food-borne pathogens: an in situ high affinity capture and staining concept.

Food industries need simple, rapid and cost-effective solutions for pathogen detection in food and environmental samples. In this paper, we describe a simple but novel detection concept combining an affinity capture surface and intracellular metabolic marker to visualize the bacterial presence on the affinity surface. The surface of a Solid Phase Support (SPS) is functionalized with specific phage tail proteins targeted to the bacterial pathogen of interest.