Detection of Enterococci with three different methods

Abstract: Water is the most consumed foodstuff around the world. Therefore it is very important to analyze possible faecal contamination of water, and Enterococci are an indicator for that. They are also used as an indicator for possible faecal contamination in food. Normally you find Enterococci in the intestines of humans and animals, but Enterococci can also give infections like urinary tract infection. In this study, varying number of colonies and colours of Enterococci on different media were evaluated. The purpose was to investigate if three different methods would give the same numbers of colonies. Another interesting perspective was to investigate if one medium could be used for two methods. Membrane filter techniques and surface spreading techniques were used to detect Enterococci. These methods were compared with a most probable number method. None of the strains showed an optimal result on all media, however one medium, ChromoCult, showed good results for all investigated strains.