The poultry industry is under intense scrutiny right now when it comes to Salmonella control, but a new next generation sequencing technique called CRISPR-SeroSeq has developed a better way to stop the pathogen.

During her research, [researcher Nikki] Shariat discovered that the Salmonella serotypes commonly seen preharvest did not necessarily match with the serotypes seen after processing.

Specifically, S. Kentucky was found a lot by producers, whereas S. Infantis was the prevalent serotype at the processing plant.

These facts made Shariat realize that perhaps current microbiological techniques were only identifying the most common serotypes.

CRISPRs are native genomic regions naturally found within Salmonella. Even better, the CRISPR regions match very well in helping to identify Salmonella serotypes. CRISPR-SeroSeq, the next-generation sequencing technique developed in Shariat’s lab, can identify that a sample contains 95% S. Kentucky and 5% S. Infantis, for example.

…

Deep serotyping techniques could help reduce Salmonella in several ways. It could improve the screening and selection for autogenous vaccines, ensure that the industry is collecting samples in the right way and at the correct time, more accurately target serotypes and anticipate which serotypes will become dominant next.

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