The aims of this study were to evaluate the occurrence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in retail foods in Shaanxi, China and to investigate antimicrobial resistance and molecular characteristics of these strains. A total of 1979 retail food samples were randomly collected during 2008-2012 from supermarkets and farmers markets and screened for S. aureus, and then S. aureus isolates were further examined to determine whether they were MRSA. MRSA isolates were further characterized by antimicrobial susceptibility test, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, spa typing, multilocus sequence typing, and SCCmec typing, and were examined for genes encoding enterotoxins, exfoliative toxins, Panton-Valentine leukocidin (pvl), and toxic shock syndrome toxin 1. Among all the samples examined, four (1.4%) raw milk samples, six (2.3%) chicken samples, one (0.6%) pork sample, three (0.6%) ready-to-eat food samples, and three (2.5%) dumpling samples were positive for MRSA. No MRSA isolates were recovered from infant foods. A total of 23 MRSA isolates were recovered from the 17 MRSA-positive samples. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests showed that, among these MRSA isolates, resistance was most frequently observed to penicillin, ampicillin, oxacillin, cefoxitin, and clindamycin (each 100%), followed by erythromycin (95.7%) and clarithromycin (87.0%). The commonly detected toxin genes were pvl, seg, seb, sed, followed by see, sec, and sei. Seven spa types (t189, t377, t437, t899, t10793, t5762, and a new spa type) and three SCCmec types (II, IVb, and V) were identified. More than half (52.2%) of the MRSA isolates belonged to ST9, followed by ST88, ST59, ST188, ST72, and ST630. Our findings indicate that MRSA in food could be from both animal and human origin. Although the prevalence is low, the presence of multidrug resistant and enterotoxigenic MRSA strains in foods poses a potential threat to consumers and emphasizes the need for better control of sources of contamination.
