Morphometric parameters of foodborne related-pathogens estimated by transmission electron microscopy and their relation to optical density and colony forming units

The different morphological characteristics of five bacterial pathogen strains were analyzed through transmission electron microscopy for addressing the particular relationship between optical density and colony-forming units for each strain. Generated linear equations will allow a reliable calculation of bacterial concentrations through simple optical density measurements. •Morphology is related to bacterial concentrations obtained by optical density.•Equations using optical densities can predict the number of colony-forming units.•The bigger the bacterial size, the lower the slope in the linear equation.