Study on the incidence of Salmonella enteritidis in poultry and meat samples by cultural and PCR methods

Aim: To study the incidence of S. enteritidis in poultry and meat samples by cultural and PCR methods. Materials and Methods: A total of 130 samples (25 each of chicken, mutton, poultry faeces, cloacal samples and 10 each of liver, spleen and kidney) collected from different sources were subjected to cultural and PCR methods for the presence of Salmonella and Salmonella enteritidis. Primers for invA and sefA gene were used for Salmonella and S. enteritidis respectively. Results: Out of 130 samples, 87 were positive for Salmonella spp. i.e. chicken-16(64%), mutton-12(48%), faeces-23(92%), cloacal swabs-23(92%), liver-5(50%), spleen and kidney samples-4(40%) each by PCR methods, whereas 77 were positive by cultural method i.e. chicken-14(56%), mutton-10(40%), faeces-22(88%), cloacal swabs-21(84%), liver-4(40%), spleen and kidney-3(30% each). Out of 87 positive for Salmonella by PCR method, 59(chicken-12, mutton-7, faeces-17, cloacal swabs-15, liver-3, spleen-2, kidney-3) were positive for S. enteritidis. High incidence of S. enteritidis (68%) in all the above samples are indicative of unhygienic conditions in poultry farms. Selective enrichment with Rappaport-Vassilidias (RV) broths and Tetrathionate (TT) broths were superior over Selenite-F (SF) and Selenite cysteine (SC) broths. Conclusions: High incidence of S. enteritidis was seen in most of poultry samples like chicken, kidney, liver and it's faeces than mutton, which was indicative of contamination of S. enteritidis is more prevalent in poultry farms. Keywords: Cultural, Incidence, PCR, Salmonella, Salmonella enteritidis.