Staphylococcal Gastroenteritis

Staphylococcus aureus: Characterisation and Quantitative Growth Description in Milk and Artisanal Raw Milk Cheese Production

“…aureus is a mesophilic organism with optimum growth temperature in the range from 37 °C to 40 °C [7][8][9]17]. The minimal temperature for growth is about 7.0 °C [5,8,10], but some strains do not even show growth at 8 °C [19]. S. aureus survives freezing, in meat at -18 °C it will survive for at least 6 months with no change in counts [6].…”

“…S. aureus survives freezing, in meat at -18 °C it will survive for at least 6 months with no change in counts [6]. On the other hand, a temperature higher than 46 °C is not acceptable for the majority of strains, with some exceptions that do grow up to 50 °C [6,7,9,10]. Heating causes damage to the cell.…”

“…In general, enterotoxins production is expected in a temperature range of 10-46 °C, with the optimum temperature for production in the range 40-45 °C [6,8,10,20]. Enterotoxins are heatstable in milk.…”

“…Their resistance to heating is represented by D-values at 121°C and 100°C ranging from 9.9-11.4 to 70.0 minutes, respectively [21,22]. Their heat-resistance decreases following SECSEBSEA and is also significantly reduced in acidic conditions [10]. It should also be noticed that 99.6% of cells are destroyed by the pasteurisation of milk at 72 °C for 15s, and at 72 °C for 35s all cells are killed.…”

“…Regarding pH, S. aureus is able to grow in a range of pH 4.0-9.8, with an optimum of 6-7 pH [6,[8][9][10]. The minimal values of pH for growth are influenced by other environmental factors.…”