Detection of Listeria monocytogenes Using a PCR/DNA Probe Assay

It is only in recent years that Listeria monocytogenes has become regarded as a significant food-borne pathogen. Interest in the organism arose due to several food-borne outbreaks in the early 1980s of listeriosis. The high mortality rate associated with the illness prompted widespread public concern about the pathogen and resulted in health authorities and the food industry initiating programs to control the organism and the disease. Listeriosis is not characterized by a unique set of symptoms, since its course depends on the state of the host. Approximately one-third of human L. monocytogenes infections are associated with pregnant women and their unborn infants, and the other two thirds occur in non-pregnant immunocompromised individuals of all ages. Symptoms caused by the infection during pregnancy are generally only a mild fever in the mother, with or without gastroenteritis or flu-like symptoms, but the consequences for the fetus or newborn are often major or fatal.