Safety, efficacy and utility of methods of transferring adhesive and cohesive Escherichia coli cells to microplates to avoid aerosols

Abstract

The virtual colony count (VCC) microbiological assay has been utilized for over a decade to measure the antimicrobial activity of peptides such as defensins and LL-37 against biosafety level (BSL)-1 and BSL-2 bacteria including Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, and Enterobacter aerogenes.  In addition, a modified pipetting technique was presented in a 2011 study of defensin activity against the BSL-3 pathogen Bacillus anthracis.  Both studies were published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.  Here I report that the method can also detect cross-contamination caused by aerosols utilizing the VCC method of data analysis by quantitative growth kinetics (QGK).  The QGK threshold time, or Tt, equivalent to the cycle time Ct reported in 1996 by Heid et al., precisely identifies when wells were inoculated.