Rapid CE microbial assays for consumer products that contain active bacteria

Abstract

Recent advances in high efficiency separation methods of bacteria allow their rapid identification and quantitation in some cases. A specific capillary electrophoresis (CE) technique is used to identify and quantitate Lactobacillus acidophilus in both pill and syrup health products as well as Bifidobacterium infantis in a powdered formula supplement. Cell viability can be evaluated as well. In some cases, both the living and dead bacterial cells as well as the molecular excipients can be evaluated in a single run. © 2001 Federation of European Microbiological Societies.