Aqua Screen® - the ideal alternative to the traditional culture method Due to the rising risk of legionella infections associated with increasing mechanization control analysis of process water becomes more and more important globally. In order to make a rapid and reliable quantification of Legionella pneumophila and/or Legionella species possible, Minerva Biolabs developed Aqua Screen®. Aqua Screen® is a complete water test system for legionella risk management which is based on a simple 3-step protocol (water filtration, DNA extraction and real-time PCR analysis).

Advantages

• Aqua Screen® identifies legionella directly, cumbersome subcultivation is no longer necessary.
  
• Aqua Screen® quantifies legionella rapidly and precisely. The analysis of only one sample volume is sufficient, whilst the ISO method often requires several dilution steps.
  
• Aqua Screen® supplies quantitative results within 3 to 4 hours, which allows you to assess the risks and to take preventive measurements early.
  

High Sensitivity and Precision
The Aqua Screen® system detects both viable but not culturable (VBNC) and culturable legionella. Altogether less than 500 legionella particles (or genome units) per litre of water can be detected. (Depending upon the environmental condition 500 genome units correspond to 0.001-0.5 CFU/ml water).

The system supplies reproducible results and correlates with traditional methods. Aqua Screen® complies with French standard (AFNOR T90-471) and was intensively validated.

The Aqua Screen® system is used with conventional filtration units (e.g. Sartorius CombiSart®). After filtration of the water , sample extraction of legionella DNA is performed with the Aqua Screen®Fast Extract kit. The extraction procedure is simple and requires the usual laboratory equipment. Aqua Screen®Fast Extract is the method of the choice in order to prepare high-quality DNA for the subsequent PCR analysis.

For real-time PCR analysis we offer two variants of our Aqua Screen® PCR Detection Kit: Aqua Screen® Legionella pneumophila and Aqua Screen® Legionella spp for the specific detection of Legionella pneumophila and/or of all pathogenic Legionella species (spp). The PCR assays are extremely sensitive (Quantification Limit: 25 genome copies/test) and provide reliable and precise results due to the integrated controls and a superior master mix system.