Morphological and biochemial characteritics of Listeria Monocytogenes isolated from chevon, mutton and chicken

L. monocytogenes is a food-borne pathogen that is distributed in a wide variety of environments. Human infection may lead to a serious and potentially lifethreatening illness known as listeriosis. Total 50 samples each of sheep, goat and poultry raw meat (50–60 gm) were collected from local market of Ludhiana city, Punjab and subjected for characterization. Listeria monocytogenes (MTCC 1143) strain was used for standard reference. All the isolates were gram positive, non-spore formers and non-capsulated and biochemically all the isolated and the reference strain were catalase, methyl red, Voges-Proskauer and CAMP test positive. All the isolates and reference strain fermented glucose, rhamnose, maltose and esculin. None of the isolates and reference strain utilized xylose, sucrose and mannitol except isolate I₅ which fermented mannitol.