Variability in lag duration of Listeria monocytogenes strains in half Fraser enrichment broth after stress affects the detection efficacy using the ISO 11290-1 method

A collection of 23 Listeria monocytogenes strains of clinical and food origin was tested for their ability to recover and grow out in half Fraser enrichment broth following the ISO 11290-1:2017 protocol. Recovery of sub-lethally heat-injured cells in half Fraser broth was compared to reference cells with no stress pre-treatment. The enrichments were followed over time by plate counts and the growth parameters were estimated with the 3-phase model which described the data best. The reference cells without stress pre-treatment showed a short lag duration, which ranged from 1.4 to 2.7 h. However, significant variation in the ability to recover after 60 °C heat stress was observed among the tested strains and resulted in a lag duration from 4.7 to 15.8 h. A subset of strains was also exposed to low-temperature acid stress, and the lag duration showed to be also stress dependent. Scenario analyses and Monte Carlo simulations were carried out using the growth parameters obtained in the enrichments. This demonstrated that when starting with one cell, the detection threshold for efficient transfer of at least one cell to the secondary enrichment step, i.e. 2 log₁₀ CFU/ml, was not reached by 11 of 23 strains tested (48%) after exposure to 60 °C heat stress. Increasing the incubation time from 24 to 26 h and the transfer volume from 0.1 to 1.0 ml can increase the average probability to transfer at least one cell to the secondary enrichment step from 79.9% to 99.0%. When optimizing enrichment procedures, it is crucial to take strain variability into account as this can have a significant impact on the detection efficacy.