Usefulness Of Microbial Cytotoxins In The Diagnosis Of Selected Bacterial Infections

The reaction of synergistic hemolysis, which is the basis of the CAMP test, is used in the preliminary identification of selected bacterial pathogens, including L. monocytogenes, C. perfringens, S. agalactiae. The experimental part was to determine the influence blood cells of used, incubation time, distance between growth lines and the type of strains on the intensity of CAMP. Synergistic hemolysis was observed in the classic CAMP test, when 10% human blood cell is used in the medium. It has been shown that the optimal substrate for the CAMP test to identify Listeria sp. is an agar with the 5% addition of human blood cells. While sheep’s erythrocytes were the best substrate for hemolysis of C. perfringens. The optimum distance and incubation time for the tested bacterial species was 1–4 mm and 24 h. When performing preliminary identification of pathogenic microorganisms using the CAMP test, different types of erythrocytes should be used, due to strain and species-specific variabilieties.