Patent ID: 7306930

Claim:
A method for detecting bacterial endospores present in a medium comprising the steps of: (i) constructing a standard curve by bringing together: a. a sample medium containing a known number of bacterial endospores; and b. a multidentate ligand lanthanide complex, wherein said complex is comprised of a multidentate ligand bound to a lanthanide ion, said multidentate ligand having recognition sites with attractive binding interactions for dipicolinic acid and facilitating the formation of a lanthanide dipicolinic acid complex wherein said lanthanide ion is a terbium or europium ion; and c. detecting a plurality of luminescence intensities at wavelengths distinctive of a lanthanide dipicolinic acid complex in the combined lanthanide complex and said medium comprising a known number of bacterial endospores, whereby a standard curve is obtained; (ii) combining a sample medium containing an unknown number of bacterial endospores with the lanthanide-multidentate ligand complex in (i) b. above; (iii) detecting a luminescence intensity resulting from said combining in step (ii) above; and (iv) obtaining the number of bacterial endospores in the sample medium from said standard curve obtained in step (i) above, comprising correlating the detected luminescence intensity with the endospore numbers on the standard curve.