Seafood Safety: New Technologies and International Collaborations Improve Pathogen Testing

“With 80 percent of all seafood consumed in the U.S. being imported from other countries, microbiological testing will continue to be an important step in protecting consumers from foodborne illnesses now and into the future,” White predicts.

Commercial PCR Test Kits for Seafood Safety

BIOTECON Diagnostics GmbH, Potsdam, Germany, offers a number of test kits for pathogens identification in fish and seafood products, according to Olaf Degen, MBA, the firm’s head of operational marketing.

The most recent offering, foodproof Listeria plus L. monocytogenes Detection LyoKit, introduced in 2019, is relevant for use with products like tuna salad and tuna sandwiches, Degen relates. “This LyoKit enables the simultaneous detection of the food-relevant sensu stricto Listeria species, L. monocytogenes, L. innocua, L. seeligeri, L. welshimeri, L. ivanovii, and L. marthii, as well as the specific identification of the pathogenic species, L. monocytogenes, in a single PCR reaction,” he elaborates.

The BIOTECON Diagnostics portfolio contains the foodproof Vibrio Detection LyoKit, which Degen says detects and differentiates between V. parahaemolyticus, V. vulnificus, and V. cholerae in a single PCR test. The Vibrio kit is particularly useful for quality control laboratories testing raw, ready-to-eat seafood and for shrimp aquaculture, Degen points out.

BIOTECON Diagnostics also offers the foodproof Norovirus (GI, GII) plus Hepatitis A Virus Detection Kit. “This specifically detects human pathogenic noroviruses of the genogroups I and II, and hepatitis A virus of the genotypes 1, 2, and 3 in a real-time PCR multiplex assay,” Degen says. “The virus test system has been validated with various matrices, including fresh oysters, mussels, shrimp, fresh and frozen tuna, sushi, and water.”

All of the BIOTECON Diagnostics pathogen test kits allow analysis to be performed in less than 24 hours with high sensitivity and 100 percent specificity, Degen notes. “In addition, yeast and molds can be detected in fewer than six hours directly from seafood samples using our foodproof Yeast and Mold Quantification LyoKit, instead of the usual five days it takes with standard methods,” he says.