title: Evaluation of three commercial systems for the identification of pathogenic Neisseria and Branhamella species against the conventional method.
abstract: We compared three commercial systems for the identification of Neisseria and Branhamella spp. with the conventional method using cystine-tryptic digest agar (CTA) supplemented with carbohydrates, DNase production, and nitrate reduction. We evaluated the API quadFerm+ [( API], Analytab Products, Inc., Plainview, N.Y.), NEISSERIA [( Pasteur], Diagnostics Pasteur, Marnes-la-Coquette, France), and Neisseria Identification Discs [( Oxoid], Oxoid Ltd., Basingstoke, England) using the conventional method as a reference. One hundred and twenty-nine strains were included in this study. The conventional method identified 125 strains (96.9%). Four strains of N. gonorrhoeae remained glucose-negative in the CTA media but gave positive reactions in the API system. API, Pasteur, and Oxoid identified 126 (97.7%), 124 (96.1%), and 62 strains (48.1%), respectively. API and Pasteur seem to be very useful systems for the differentiation of clinically significant species of Neisseria and Branhamella. API has the additional advantage of requiring only a 3 h incubation period.
mesh_terms: D050260:Carbohydrate Metabolism; D001936:Moraxella catarrhalis / Q000254:growth & development / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D009343:Neisseria / Q000254:growth & development / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests