In a previous paper, the ogdH gene that encodes 2-oxoglutarat dehydrogenase was isolated from Salmonella typhimurium. The catalytic N-terminal region in the enzyme was found to be very specific for the Salmonella species. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to detect S. typhimurium in food sources using primers designed for OGDH-l and OGDH-2 which were based on the salmonella-specific region of the ogdH gene. A simple polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detection method was developed to detect low numbers of S. typhimurium in a chicken meat microbial consortium. Using the ogdH-specific primers under stringent amplification conditions and for gene probe analysis, fewer than 100 colony-forming units (CFUs) were detectable when pure cultures were employed. When the PCR assay was run on S. typhimurium-contaminated meat contents, only the positive meat samples containing as few as 200 CFUs reacted to the assay. The method employed for sample processing is simple and it was determined to provide a sensitive means of detecting trace amounts of S. typhimurium-specific sequences in the presence of mixed meat microbial populations. When compared with six representative intestinal gram-negative bacterial strains in foods, including Vibrio parahaemolyticus, V. vulnificus, Enterobacter cloacae, E. coli O157:H7, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Proteus sp., S. typhimurium had a unique and distinct PCR product (796 bp). In conclusion, the two OGDH primers were found to be rapid and sensitive detectors of Salmonella spp for the PCR method.