The bacterial strains used in this study for inclusivity and exclusivity testing of the PMA-mPCR-IAC assay are listed in Table 1. All bacterial strains were grown in Luria Bertani (LB) medium overnight at 37 C in a rotary shaker at 180 rpm. C. sakazakii CMCC45401, B. cereus JX0121LY, and S. aureus CMCC 26001 were used as reference strains for establish and optimize the mPCR assay.