Fig. 3

Detection of viable S. aureus cells in spiked milk samples by the PMA-qPCR assay. All milk samples (1 ml) were mixed with 10⁴ dead S. aureus cells, and then each sample was mixed with a different number of live S. aureus cells (10², 10³, 10⁴, 10⁵, and 10⁶ CFU/ml), respectively. Each concentration of cell was sampled in triplicate