Validation of qPCR methodology for detection of Campylobacter spp. in cow milk and Minas artisanal cheese

Despite the high incidence of Campylobacter spp. in foods worldwide, there is a lack of data on its occurrence in Brazil, mainly in dairy products. Furthermore, some available rapid microbiological methods only target the detection of Campylobacter in poultry and are not validated for dairy products. Based on this information, this work aimed to evaluate a commercial kit for the detection of Campylobacter using the real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) technique in milk and Minas artisanal cheese, which is made with raw milk. The performance of the BAX (R) qPCR system was evaluated against a culture-based reference method (ISO 10272-1:2017) for the relative detection limit, sensitivity, relative trueness, and false positive rate. The results indicated that the two methods presented equivalent results when a secondary enrichment step was added using Bolton broth before inoculation in the BAX (R) system, which avoided the inhibition by the matrix components.