Rapid detection of Escherichia coli in field based potable water applications

E.coli 0157:H7 is one of the major bacterial diseases transmitted through drinking water and is a major contaminant on leafy greens. Results from current traditional plating methods including P-A analysis is time consuming and this slow process is an hinderance as a preventive control for food-borne outbreaks. In this experiment a fluorescence immonoassay outlined in fig. 7, is proposed for detecting E.coli 0157:H7 in water with a moderate amount of preparatory steps and less than 5 minutes for the detection of this pathogen. In examining the relationship between E.coli 0157: H7 CFU/0.1mL to fluorescence intensity, our model data evaluated with Minitab 16, revealed a P(0.001)= 0, and F=271.56 demonstrating a stong relationship of E.coli 0157:H7 detection with this immunoassay. E.aerogenes the negative contol for the immunoassay revealed a P(0.001)=0.677 and F=0.31, validating the specificity of the model. E.coli 0157:H7 was detected at 1 CFU/0.1mL with the proposed model and least three sigma (3σ) levels above the baseline for the control blank, thereby showing ≥ 99.7% probability of locating E.coli 0157:H7 when compared to the experiment control.