First Genome-Based Characterisation and Staphylococcal Enterotoxin Production Ability of Methicillin-Susceptible and Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Strains Isolated from Ready-to-Eat Foods in Algiers (Algeria)

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus is a pathogenic microorganism of humans and animals, able to cause foodborne intoxication due to the production of staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) and to resist antibiotic treatment as in the case of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). In this study, we performed a genomic characterisation of 12 genetically diverse S. aureus strains isolated from ready-to-eat foods in Algiers (Algeria). Moreover, their ability to produce some classical and new staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) was investigated. The 12 S. aureus strains resulted to belong to nine known sequence types (STs) and to the novel ST7199 and ST7200. Furthermore, S. aureus SA46 was assigned to the European clone MRSA-ST80-SCCmec-IV. The 12 strains showed a wide endowment of se and sel (staphylococcal enterotoxin-like toxin) genes (sea, seb, sed, seg, seh, sei, selj, sek, sem, sen, seo, seq, ser, selu2, selw, selx, sey, sel30; ψent1-ψent2), including variants and pseudogenes, and harboured the enterotoxin gene cluster (egc) types 1 and 5. Additionally, they produced various amounts of SEA (64.54–345.02 ng/mL), SEB (2871.28–14739.17 ng/mL), SED (322.70–398.94 ng/mL), SEH (not detectable–239.48 ng/mL), and SER (36720.10–63176.06 ng/mL) depending on their genotypes. The genetic determinants related to their phenotypic resistance to β-lactams (blaZ, mecA), ofloxacin (gyrA-S84L), erythromycin (ermB), lincomycin (lmrS), kanamycin (aph(3′)-III, ant(6)-I), and tetracyclin (tet(L), tet(38)) were also detected. A plethora of virulence-related genes, including major virulence genes such as the tst gene, determinant for the toxic shock syndrome toxin-1, and the lukF-PV and lukS-PV genes, encoding the panton-valentine leukocidin (PVL), were present in the S. aureus strains, highlighting their pathogenic potential. Furthermore, a phylogenomic reconstruction including worldwide foodborne S. aureus showed a clear clustering based on ST and geographical origin rather than the source of isolation.

Antimicrobial and biocide resistance in Staphylococcus aureus: genomic features, decontamination strategies, and the role of S. aureus complex-related species, with a focus on ready-to-eat food and food-contact surfaces

“…Many studies reported the WGS-based prediction of S. aureus AMR in food (Zhang F. et al, 2022;Fanelli et al, 2022;Li et al, 2022;Sri Prabakusuma et al, 2022;Wu et al, 2022). Resistance prediction databases, such as CARD, MEGARes, and AMRFinder, generally rely on BLASTn analysis and require significant computational resources and time (Gordon et al, 2014;Babiker et al, 2019).…”

Molecular Epidemiology and Characterization of Multidrug-Resistant MRSA ST398 and ST239 in Himachal Pradesh, India

“…Both Staphylococcal chromosomal cassette mecA (SCC mecA ) and detection of the PVL production are useful tools for the molecular characterization of HA- MRSA and CA-MRSA isolates. 15 In conclusion, multi-drug resistant (MDR) MRSA with vanA / lukS-PV/lukf-PV spread Asian countries including India in the past couple of years show a predominance of major clones such as ST239, and ST5 (HA-MRSA) while ST59, ST338, ST30, and ST72 which are associated with CA-MRSA. 16 Although there have been few epidemiological studies of MRSA from other provisions of India published but knowledge of the entire MRSA population and clone dissemination in hospital settings from north India is still quite limited.…”