Isolation and Identification of Thermotolerant Campylobacter

A total of 1,720 samples were processed during the whole project and Campylobacter was recovered from carcass samples after the enrichment and the enumeration phases, according to parts 1 and 2, respectively, of the NF EN ISO 10272 standard procedure [20 , 21 ]. The isolates were cultured on Columbia blood agar and incubated at 42°C for 48 h in a microaerophilic atmosphere. After a preliminary phenotypic characterization, suspected colonies were confirmed as thermotolerant Campylobacter and identified to species level using a multiplex PCR, as described previously by Di Giannatale et al. [22 (link)]. Genomic DNA was extracted using a Wizard genomic DNA purification kit (Promega, Madison, WI, USA). Isolates were stored in a Microbank (Pro-Lab Diagnostics Canada, Richmond Hill, ON, Canada) at 80°C until further analysis.