Authors: Su Kyung Oh Minseon Koo Nari Lee Hyun Jung Kim SeWook Oh Soon Young Choi
Publish Date: 2011/06/30
Volume: 20, Issue: 3, Pages: 579-584
Abstract
To investigate the distribution of staphylococcal enterotoxinlike SEl genes in Staphylococcus aureus from food a total of 154 S aureus isolates from readytoeat RTE foods in Korea were analyzed by mutiplex PCR for the detection of the following 9 staphylococcal enterotoxinlike genes sek sel sem sen seo sep seq ser and seu Seventynine isolates 513 were found to have at least one of SEl genes The major SEl genes were sek sem sen and seq Other SEl genes found in the isolates were seo 21 isolates 136 seu 12 isolates 78 sep 8 isolates 52 sel 7 isolates 45 and ser 2 isolates 13 Most 95 of the isolates with staphylococcal enterotoxin SE genes were also carried SEl genes The genes seg sei sem and sen were all detected in the same isolates Ninetyseven of isolates with seg+sei+sem+sen also contained seo or seu Ninetyfour of isolates with sea+seh were found to coexist with sek+seq The toxic shock syndrome toxin gene tst1 was found in all isolates with egc2 including seg sei sem sen and seu The coexistence of SE and SEl genes in S aureus isolates from RTE foods can be explained by the mobile genetic elements Because of the mobile genetic element SE and SEl genes of S aureus in foods may be transferable to nontoxigenic S aureus and other food pathogens Additional studies must be conducted to prevent spread of pathogenic genes such as enterotoxin gene
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