Prevalence and Characterization of Staphylococcus aureus Pathogenic Factors Isolated from Various Foods in Korea

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus, a major human pathogen, produces a wide array of toxins, which causes various types of disease symptoms. Prevalence of S. aureus in various foods collected during 2006-2008 in Korea was investigated. S. aureus was isolated from 275 of 5,186 (5.3%) food samples collected from hyper-markets in Korea. Seasonal temperature affected the prevalence of S. aureus in various foods with high isolation rate during the summer. Most of the enterotoxigenic strains produced enterotoxin A only or enterotoxin A in combination with another toxin. A total of 54.5% of the tested strains contained either one or more enterotoxin genes and 3.6% possessed a tst gene. This study offers basic information for securing the stability of food during storage and circulation, and provides an epidemiological tool to study the cause, origin and temporal spread of S. aureus food poisoning.

Antimicrobial susceptibility and pathogenic genes ofStaphylococcus aureusisolated from the oral cavity of patients with periodontitis

“…This discrepancy may have resulted from the different characteristics of strains originating from dental patients in comparison to patients from general hospitals. Peck et al [ 19 ] reported seg and sei to be the main enterotoxins in their study; Hwang et al [ 31 ] reported that the main enterotoxins were seg, seh and sei ; Cho et al [ 32 ] found that seg, sei and she were the main enterotoxins; Kim et al [ 33 ] identified sea as the main enterotoxin; Baik et al [ 34 ] reported seg, sei, and sec to be the main enterotoxins; Nashev et al [ 18 ] identified seg, sei and seb as the main enterotoxins; and Bania et al [ 35 ] reported that sec and seg were dominant, suggesting that enterotoxins are very diverse, and vary according to the location where the strains and specimen were isolated. S. aureus produces five toxins that cause damage to various membranes, including four hemolysins and leukocidin.…”

Toxin gene and antibiotic resistance of Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus isolated from kitchen cleaning tools in child care centers

“…The distribution of the toxin genes in S. aureus is presented in Table 1. There are currently 16 types of toxin genes reported in S. aureus, but the main detection toxin genes are reported as sea, seb, sec, sed, and see (Cho et al, 2011). Therefore, we used a kit containing these 5 toxin genes to check the toxin gene distribution of S. aureus.…”

“…In this study, sei and seg toxin genes were detected in S. aureus isolated from dishcloths and scourers. According to a domestic S. aureus enterotoxin study, sea, seb, sec, sed, and see toxin genes account for 95% of the incidence of food poisoning, and among them, the sea toxin gene is reported as the main cause of food poisoning (Cho et al, 2011). As a result of analyzing 129 strains with toxin genes among S. aureus isolated from domestic sushi and sashimi, the distribution of S. aureus toxin genes showed a high detection rate with 107 strains of sea toxin type (Lee, 2011).…”

“…As Staphylococcus aureus also resides on human hands and skin, cross-contamination must be avoided. S. aureus contains 16 types of enterotoxins: SEA, SEB, SEC, SED, SEE, SEG, SEH, SEI, SEJ, SEK, SEL, SEM, SEN, SEO, SEP, and SEQ (Cho et al, 2011;Shin et al, 2018). In the current status of the outbreak of S. aureus, it has been reported that the occurrence of SEA, SEB, SEC, SED, and SEE-toxins is the most common (Cho et al, 2011).…”

“…S. aureus contains 16 types of enterotoxins: SEA, SEB, SEC, SED, SEE, SEG, SEH, SEI, SEJ, SEK, SEL, SEM, SEN, SEO, SEP, and SEQ (Cho et al, 2011;Shin et al, 2018). In the current status of the outbreak of S. aureus, it has been reported that the occurrence of SEA, SEB, SEC, SED, and SEE-toxins is the most common (Cho et al, 2011). Toxigenic food poisoning is acutely caused by toxin proteins produced by toxin genes, and the analysis of toxin genes in food-poisoning bacteria is important for identifying risk factors .…”