Patent ID: 7419798

Claim:
A method of detecting bacteria in a fluid sample suspected of containing bacteria comprising: separating intact eukaryotic cells from suspected intact bacterial cells that may be present in the fluid sample, wherein said separating comprises filtering the eukaryotic cells using a filter that blocks the eukaryotic cells and allows bacterial cells that may be present to pass through, to generate a filtered fluid sample that may contain bacterial cells, and contacting the filtered fluid sample with a support surface that binds bacteria that may be present in the sample; lysing bacterial cells that may be present bound to said support surface to release bacterial ATP into a fluid to generate a bacterial lysate fluid; contacting bacterial ATP that may be present in the bacterial lysate fluid with an ATP-consuming enzyme that catalyzes a reaction in an ATP assay fluid; and monitoring the enzyme-catalyzed reaction in the ATP assay fluid; wherein the fluid sample is a blood product for transfusion into a mammal; wherein the method detects 10,000 bacterial colony forming units per ml or less of each of the following species of bacteria: Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Clostridium perfringens, Corynebacterium species, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter cloacae, Klebsiella oxytoca, Propionibacterium acnes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella choleraesuis, Serratia marcesens, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Streptococcus pyogenes , and Streptococcus viridans.