Species belonging to the genus Salmonella are an important cause of enteric fevers, gastroenteritis, and septicemia, and the pathogens are commonly transmitted through contaminated food. In this study, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of a 287-bp region of the invA gene was compared to a microbiological technique to determine the presence of Salmonella in retail beef and in cantaloupe rinse samples. Both methods showed the same level of sensitivity, detecting 1 CFU/25 g of meat after enrichment for 24 h at 42• C. The presence of Salmonella was determined in 50 commercial top sirloin beef samples that were not artificially inoculated. Three samples were positive by the microbiological method, and these samples and an additional sample were positive by the PCR. Both methods were also used to test surface rinses of cantaloupes collected from 4 farms in Nayarit, Mexico. Salmonella was detected by the microbiological method in 9 of 20 samples (45%), whereas the pathogen was detected by the PCR in 11 samples (55%). This study demonstrates the utility of the PCR targeting the invA gene to determine the presence of Salmonella spp. in beef and cantaloupe samples.

The performance of the fluorescence polarization assay (FPA) using the recently described Brucella melitensis native hapten and the Brucella abortus O-polysaccharide tracer was evaluated and compared with those of The World Organization for Animal Health tests related to indirect and competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays as classification variables for goat sera obtained from a high-prevalence area where vaccination was performed; test series were also evaluated to increase the final specificity of the tests. Our results showed that the respective relative sensitivity and specificity were 99.7% and 32.5% for the rose Bengal test with a 3% cell concentration (RBT3), 92.8% and 68.8% for the rose Bengal test with 8% cell concentration (RBT8), 98.4% and 84.9% for the Canadian complement fixation test (CFT), 83.7% and 65.5% for the Mexican CFT, 98.4% and 81.0% for the buffered plate agglutination test (BPAT), and 78.1% and 89.3% for the fluorescence polarization assay (FPA). The use of the FPA as the secondary test significantly increased the final specificities of test combinations; the screening tests BPAT, RBT3, and RBT8 plus FPA resulted in 90%, 91.2%, and 91.3% final specificities, respectively, whereas for the combinations RBT3 plus Mexican CFT, RBT8 plus Mexican CFT, and BPAT plus Canadian CFT, the specificities were 65.5%, 63.2%, and 91.7%, respectively. The results suggested that the FPA may be routinely applied as an adaptable screening test for diagnosis of goat brucellosis, since its cutoff can be adjusted to improve its sensitivity or specificity, it is a rapid and simple test, it can be the test of choice when specificity is relevant or when an alternative confirmatory test is not available, and it is not affected by vaccination, thus reducing the number of goats wrongly slaughtered due to misdiagnosis.

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