Serologic Studies of Staphylococcal Enterotoxin

Abstract

'HE NEED for a simple and specific technique for demonstrating and assaying staphylococcal enterotoxin has been recognized for a long time. Research efforts ranging from biological tests with small and relatively cheap animals (1, 2) to extensive chemical and serologic studies of enterotoxin (3) have not attained this important objective.The many contradictory reports found in the literature (4) on staphylococcal enterotoxin are evidence of the inadequacy of the crude, difficult, and impractical tests that are available for its detection. Evidence incriminating suspected foods in outbreaks of staphylococcal food poisoning is largely circumstantial and is limited to the use of epidemiological findings and the demonstration of the presence in the suspected food of appreciable numbers of enterotoxin-producing staphylococci. The very ubiquity of the staphylococcus and, conversely, the possibility of the presence of the heatresistant enterotoxin in foods which no longer contain viable staphylococci, detract considerably from the value of such procedures.Furthermore, the demonstration of enterotoxigenicity of the isolated staphylococcus involves considerable effort. The isolated organism must be cultured on special media in order to produce the enterotoxin, and the presence of the latter is determined by the feeding of monkeys or the parenteral introduction of the culture filtrates into monkeys or cats.

Enterotoxin production, phage typing and serotyping ofStaphylococcus aureusstrains isolated from clinical materials and food

“…Certain strains of Staphylococcus aureus are known to produce different enterotoxins designated as A (Casman, 1960), B (Bergdoll, Surgalla & Dack, 1959), C (Bergdoll, Borja & Avena, 1965), D (Casman et al 1967); E (Bergdoll et al 1971), and F (Bergdoll et al 1981). These enterotoxins play an important role in the pathogenesis of staphylococcal diseases, mainly in food poisoning outbreaks (Bergdoll, Huang & Schantz, 1974) and recently in an illness called toxic shock syndrome (Bergdoll et al 1981).…”

Staphylococcal Enterotoxins, Stayphylococcal Enterotoxin B and Bioterrorism

“…The investigators grew the bacteria isolated from the cake and found that a sterile filtrate from the broth in which the bacteria were grown induced food poisoning when ingested by human volunteers. Thereafter, from investigations of various food poisoning outbreaks, an initial five antigenically distinct enterotoxins were identified suggesting that S aureus produced a family of protein toxins possessing similar properties and virulence (Casman, 1960;Bergdoll et al, 1959;Bergdoll et al, 1965;Casman et al, 1967). Since the characterization of the five serotypes, at least 20 more SEs (Table 1) have been isolated and characterized with many inducing emesis in monkeys or humans (Uchiyama et al, 2003).…”

The Staphylococcal Enterotoxins

“…In 1962 [15] this method of identification was used to establish a nomenclature for the enterotoxins designating them enterotoxins A, B, C, etc. To date, three enterotoxins have been definitely identified [6,10,14] and a fourth tentatively identified [17]. Another enterotoxin (or enterotoxins) has not been associated with a specific antibody.…”