The detection limit of the test kit increased more than tenfold up to 106–105 cells/ml in whole egg contents using the acid extraction technique compared with tenfold PBS dilution (Table 2). Egg pools inoculated with 10 cells/ml of SE were detected as SE-positive on the test panels after 24 h incubation at 37 jC using both the antigen extraction method with fatty acid mixture and the dilution technique with PBS (1:10, Table 3). It is noteworthy that the direct antigen extraction method generated a stronger signal than the dilution technique (Table 3).