Nonmicrobial alternative to reagent quality control testing.

The traditional approach to quality control in microbiology involves the routine testing of both media and reagents with live microbial cultures. This is expensive, time consuming, and subject to the variables associated with the use of live organisms. A system of reagent quality control based on the pure chemical form of the metabolic end products important to the identification of the Enterobacteriaceae was evaluated. The metabolite reagent control system is simple, reliable, and extremely cost effective, and it eliminates the need for live microbial cultures and media for reagent quality control.