A comparison of plating and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction followed by microchip electrophoresis for the inactivation of Alicyclobacillus acidoterrestris using saponin

Author(s)

Juliana V. Alberice ^{[1, 2]} ; Maribel E. Funes-Huacca ^{[1, 2]} ; Emanuel Carrilho ^{[1, 2]}

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Chem Sao Carlos, BioMicS Lab, BR-13560970 Sao Carlos, SP - Brazil

^[2] Univ Campinas Unicamp, Natl Inst Sci & Technol Bioanalyt INCTBio, BR-13083970 Campinas, SP - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society; v. 25, n. 1, p. 91-97, 2014-01-00.

Abstract

It was used reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) followed by capillary electrophoresis on a microchip to probe the viability of Alicyclobacillus acidoterrestris spores after inactivation with saponin and heat. The method was shown to be suitable for the purpose, and was faster and more sensitive than the traditional plating technique, the standard of the food industry. The limits of quantification and detection were 0.0107 and 0.0039 ng µL-1 of amplified DNA, respectively. The correlation coefficient (r) between traditional plating and our method was 0.9977, which indicates an excellent correspondence between them. Consequently, it was possible to assess, with confidence, the viability of bacteria using the RT-PCR reaction for detection. It was evaluated the potential of this molecular method over traditional microbiology in the inactivation of A. acidoterrestris by saponin as an effective agent, potentiated by heat. (AU)