title: Detection of staphylococcal enterotoxin B among toxic shock syndrome (TSS)- and non-TSS-associated Staphylococcus aureus isolates.
abstract: The association between staphylococcal enterotoxin (SE) B and toxic shock syndrome (TSS) toxin 1 (TSST-1) in menstrual and nonmenstrual TSS was examined. Production of SEB and TSST-1 in the culture supernatants from 344 Staphylococcus aureus isolates was quantitated by noncompetitive ELISA (lower detection limit, 0.5 ng/mL for both assays). In the ELISA for SEB, cross-reactive antibodies to SEC were removed by absorption in a biotin-streptavidin-agarose column (SEC1 at concentrations to 100,000 ng/mL could not be detected). Among TSST-1-negative isolates, SEB production in nonmenstrual TSS isolates (8/13, 62%) was more prevalent than that in either menstrual TSS isolates (1/4; P = .3), non-TSS infections (15/103, 15%; P less than .001), or asymptomatic carriers (14/105, 13%; P less than .001). Expression of SEB and TSST-1 was usually mutually exclusive (only 1.5% of 344 isolates produced both SEB and TSST-1). Multilocus enzyme electrophoretic typing (ET) suggested a clonal origin for both SEB-(55% of ET-5) and TSST-1 (76% of ET-19)-producing isolates. Thus, SEB may be an important cause in TSS where TSST-1 is not elaborated, especially in nonmenstrual TSS isolates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
authors.forename: V T
authors.initials: VT
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: A H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: A W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Chow
mesh_terms: D004768:Enterotoxins / Q000032:analysis*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008598:Menstruation; D012772:Shock, Septic / Q000382:microbiology*
chemical_list: D004768:Enterotoxins; C031818:enterotoxin B, staphylococcal