NCIMB has expanded its range of identification services to include qPCR. Although this technique is commonly used in clinical microbiology it is useful in any application where very rapid microbial counts are required i.e. where not only presence or absence of an organism or group of organisms is required, but also the numbers of target strains in a sample. For example, it can be used to monitor populations of corrosion-causing sulphate reducing bacteria in the oil and gas industry.

At NCIMB we have extensive experience of isolating and identifying bacteria to help our clients identify and resolve contamination problems. We routinely handle a diverse range of sample types including food, pharmaceutical and personal care products as well as cooling or process water, factory slimes, and isolates from personnel monitoring. Our microbial ID service provides fast, confidential and accurate identification of bacteria and some common fungi to GMP standards. However, bacteria aren't always unwanted contaminants, and we are also regularly called on to confirm the presence or absence of key strains in live products such as yoghurts or fermented foods.

Rapid genotypic identification is the main method we use for primary identification of isolates as it can be used to rapidly identify both viable and non-viable organisms, those with complex growth requirements and Gram variable isolates as well as slow growing and/or non-fermenters. Sequenced data is examined against the validated MicroSeq™ database as well as strains in the non-validated but much more comprehensive EMBL public database.

We also apply a range of techniques for strain differentiation including multi locus sequence typing (MLST) which uses sequence analysis of internal fragments of up to seven essential house-keeping genes.

NCIMB offers a range of microbiology and chemical analysis services as well as managing the National Collection of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria, the biggest reference collection of industrially and environmentally valuable bacteria, actinomycetes, plasmids and bacteriophages in the UK.

To find out more about our identification services contact Vikki Mitchell: V.mitchell@ncimb.com Tel: +44 (0) 1224 711100