New Discount Structure for LENTICULE discs commencing 1st January 2006
There has been no change in the pricing of LENTICULE discs since 1998 when they first became available commercially. However, because of rising production costs, it has been necessary to revise the discount structure in order to maintain the high quality and service provided with LENTICULE discs for IQC.
The cost of LENTICULE discs will remain the same i.e. £52.50 per pack of 25 discs.
LENTICULE discs are plano-convex discs
containing biologically active material in a solid water soluble
matrix.
A wide variety of bacteria and fungi, even more
fastidious strains such as Helicobacter pylori which
are difficult to freeze dry, have been successfully preserved
long-term as LENTICULE discs. Many of these strains
are of interest in quality assurance schemes and internal
quality control programmes particularly in food and water
microbiology. LENTICULE discs provide reproducibly countable
numbers of organisms. Discs are available with counts from
as low as a presence/absence level of 10cfu/disc, and, therefore,
can be conveniently and easily incorporated into routine internal
quality control procedures.
Strains available as LENTICULE discs
for use in IQC are all traceable NCTC strains and are manufactured
from ONE subculture ensuring that the characteristics of each
strain are retained.
LENTICULE discs are supplied singly supported
on a silica gel insert in small airtight plastic vials. For
long-term storage, it is recommended that the discs are kept
at -20șC ± 5șC. However, short periods at ambient temperature
do not significantly affect the viability of theLENTICULE
disc and therefore transportation does not require temperature
controlled conditions.
Preparing LENTICULE discs for use is
easy. The vial(s) containing the disc need to be removed
from freezer storage and allowed to come up to room temperature.
To rehydrate, simply add to the medium being used, solid or
liquid, either by tipping the disc from its vial or removing
with forceps. Visual confirmation of successful transfer is
facilitated by the presence of a non-interfering dye in the
disc. Dissolution is rapid - 10 minutes - and leaves no residue.
Recommendations for use are supplied with all
LENTICULE discs together with performance data for each
batch. The mean counts for a given batch are dependent on
the reconstitution method used and it is recommended that
users examine a number of discs under their laboratory conditions
and produce a guidance chart.
The consistent performance and versatility of
LENTICULE discs makes them a convenient tool that can
be incorporated within an internal quality control programme.
References
Codd AA, Richardson IR and Andrews N. Lenticules
for the control of quantitative methods in food microbiology.
J Appl Microbiol 1998, 85: 913-917.
Lightfoot NF, Richardson IR and Harford JP.
The use of LENTICULES for the process control of enumeration
techniques in food and environmental microbiology. J Appl
Microbiol 2001, 91: 660-667.
LENTICULE discs