Quantitative detection of trace VBNC Cronobacter sakazakii by immunomagnetic separation in combination with PMAxx-ddPCR in dairy products

One immunomagnetic separation (IMS) assay based on immunomagnetic beads (IMBs) has been evaluated as a potential pretreatment tool for the separation and enrichment of target bacteria. In this study, we successfully immobilized antibodies onto magnetic bead surfaces to form IMBs through biotin and a streptavidin (SA) system to capture viable but nonculturable (VBNC) Cronobacter sakazakii (C. sakazakii) from dairy products. Various parameters that affected the capture efficiency (CE) of IMS, including the number of antibodies, IMBs dose, incubation time, magnetic separation time, and immunoreaction temperature, were systematically investigated. We further determined the optimal enrichment conditions for different dairy substrates to ensure maximum enrichment of target pathogens in the system. An IMS technique combining improved propidium monoazide (PMAxx) and droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) was established to detect the pathogenic VBNC C. sakazakii. The IMS-PMAxx-ddPCR method after IMBs enrichment showed higher accuracy when the VBNC C. sakazakii was under 1 Log10 copies/g. The detection limit for this method in a background of powdered infant formula (PIF) was 5.6 copies/g. In summary, the developed IMS-PMAxx-ddPCR method has great potential for the analysis and detection of VBNC bacteria in food. •The optimized IMS method can be used to effectively capture C. sakazakii in dairy products.•Determination of LOD and quantitation of VBNC cells was possible by IMS-PMAxx-ddPCR.•This method has a low LOD (5.6 copies/g) for VBNC C. sakazakii in PIF.