Further Evidence for Staphylococcal Food Poisoning Outbreaks Caused by egc-Encoded Enterotoxins

Abstract

Staphylococcal food poisoning represents the most prevalent foodborne intoxication worldwide. It is caused by oral intake of enterotoxins preformed by Staphylococcus aureus in food. The relevance of newly described enterotoxins in outbreaks of staphylococcal food poisoning is controversially discussed. Although the staphylococcal enterotoxins SEG, SEI, SEM, SEN, and SEO elicit emesis in a monkey feeding assay, there has been no conclusive proof of their emetic activity in humans. In this study, we provide further evidence suggesting that one of these enterotoxins or a combination of SEG, SEI, SEM, SEN, and SEO cause staphylococcal food poisoning. We investigated two outbreaks registered with the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, in which only Staphylococcus aureus strains harboring the egc cluster, including seg, sei, sem, sen, and seo linked to typical signs of staphylococcal food poisoning were isolated. The outbreaks were caused by consumption of raw goat cheese and semi-hard goat cheese, and were linked to strains assigned to CC45 (agr type I) and CC9 (agr type II), respectively. These outbreaks provide further evidence that newly-described staphylococcal enterotoxins are likely to cause staphylococcal food poisoning in humans.

Prevalence and diversity of enterotoxin genes with genetic background of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from different origins in China

“…On the other hand, the prevalence of genes of egc cluster, and the other genes was similar in human (mean, 1.19), animal (1.28), and foodborne origin isolates (1.28) (P N 0.05). Previous studies have showed that strains carried novel SE or SE-like genes could cause SFPs (McLauchlin et al, 2000;Argudín et al, 2010;Johler et al, 2015), so the isolates harboring these genes were new potential hazards to food safety.…”

Lactic acid microbiota identification in water, raw milk, endogenous starter culture, and fresh Minas artisanal cheese from the Campo das Vertentes region of Brazil during the dry and rainy seasons

“…Most of that difference may be attributed to the use of an endogenous starter culture that was contaminated with the same microorganism in the same season (P < 0.05; Table 2). The presence of this bacterium in counts higher than 10 4 cfu/g in all analyzed cheeses from both seasons is alarming; it may produce enterotoxins and cause food poisoning (Johler et al, 2015).…”

Influence of Ag content on the antibacterial properties of SiC doped hydroxyapatite coatings

“…), urinary infections [54,55], and respiratory infections (e.g. rhinosinusitis [56,57], and food poisoning [58][59][60]. It may be also involved in systemic infections [61,62].…”