An ion mobility spectrometer coupled to an automated sampling system for rapid detection of bacteria is described. Examples are given of its applications to detect different species of bacteria of food safety concern. The method is based on the recognition of a volatile, metabolised enzymatically from a biochemical substrate, and detected by the ion mobility spectrometer.

..."Disease following the bite of a rat has been known in India for over 2,300 years, but it has been described worldwide much more recently as rat bite fever. This term describes two similar yet distinct disease syndromes caused by Streptobacillus moniliformis or Spirillum minus. Rat bite fever caused by S. moniliformis is more common in North America, while S. minus infection, also known as sodoku, is more common in Asia. Streptobacillary rat bite fever, the subject of this review, is a systemic illness classically characterized by relapsing fever, rash, migratory polyarthralgias, and a mortality rate of 13% when untreated. Often associated with the bite of a wild or laboratory rat, rat bite fever historically has affected laboratory technicians and the poor. As rats have become popular as pets, this has changed such that children now account for over 50% of the cases in the United States, followed by laboratory personnel and pet shop employees. Over 200 cases of rat bite fever have been documented in the United States, but this is likely a significant under-representation because rat bite fever is not a reportable disease. Further, rat bite fever has a nonspecific presentation with a broad differential diagnosis, and isolation and identification of its causative organism, S. moniliformis, is not straightforward. Thus, the challenges of diagnosis and broadened demographic exposure demand close attention to this disease and its causative organism by clinicians. "..."The risk of infection after a rat bite appears to be 10% (23, 35), and the mortality rate of untreated rat bite fever is approximately 13% (65, 91). "...

The response of soil organic nitrogen (SON) dynamics to climate may partly be deduced from changes in the concentration and origin of the major N constituents in soil, such as amino acids. In this study, we determined the enantiomers of bound amino acids in 18 native grassland soils (0–10 cm) that were sampled along a transect from central Saskatchewan, Canada, to Southern Texas, USA. Mean annual temperature (MAT) ranged from 0.9 to 23.4 °C and mean annual precipitation (MAP) from 300 to 1308 mm. d-alanine and d-glutamic acid served as markers for the bacterial origin of SON. The d-content of lysine, phenylalanine, and aspartic acid indicated an ageing of the respective SON forms. Deuterium labeling was applied to account for hydrolysis-induced racemization reactions. We found that the concentration of the bacterial biomarkers was weakly but significantly parabolically related to MAT, as previously reported for microbial-derived amino sugars. The age markers d-lysine, d-phenylalanine, and d-aspartic acid comprised 2–15% of the respective l-form. The presence of these compounds demonstrated that the structures that contained these d-enantiomers had survived microbial attack, i.e., these hydrolyzable SON forms were conserved in soil despite a living environment. First estimates indicate that the mean residence time of the lysine-containing organic matter forms extend beyond a century. Within this time-scale we did not find that climate significantly affects the degree of ageing of SON constituents in the studied topsoils.

"There has been a recent and disturbing increase in the number of children who have fallen ill and died from both the flu and MRSA. "..."Nationally, of the 74 children known to have died from the flu in the United States in 2006-07, 22 also had staph infections. Most of those staph infections were of the fast-moving, drug resistant MRSA. "...

"The use of antibiotics and other anti-microbial agents throughout the food chain seems to be contributing to the growth of resistant bacteria, which can be passed on to humans through food, according to the European Union’s (EU) food agency."..." The main foods carrying antimicrobial resistant bacteria were poultry meat, eggs, pork, or beef as well as fresh salads, all of which can be contaminated during preparation, handling, and processing. The panel also found that bacteria could be passed directly to people from contaminated food of animal origin carrying resistant bacteria and that such bacteria could colonize and infect people after ingestion. Bacteria could also be passed on to humans consuming fresh produce from land irrigated with contaminated water and food of both animal and non-animal origin could be contaminated during handling and preparation. "...

http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&Page&HPAwebAutoListName/Page/1191942152843 - Contains information about the Compylobacter bacteria