Improved Plating Media for the Detection of <i>Salmonella</i> Species with Typical and Atypical Hydrogen Sulfide Production

Abstract

The Salmonella detection ability of 2 surfactant-supplemental media, xylose-lysine-tergitol (Nia-proof) 4 (XLT4) and Miller-Mallinson (MM) agar, was compared against that of several commonly used plating media. XLT4 and MM appeared to be the most efficient in detecting Salmonella in meat products and food animal environments. MM was superior to XLT4 in detecting those increasingly more prevalent strains of Salmonella possessing weak to ultraweak H2S production characteristics.