[Application of molecular epidemiology techniques in the study of food poisoning caused by Staphylococcus aureus].
BACKGROUND
The use of molecular epidemiology techniques has provided better knowledge as to the clonal organization of bacterian populations and thus allows better follow up of epidemics. An alimentary toxiinfection in a Barcelona school produced by Staphylococcus aureus was analyzed by the combination of epidemiologic, phenotype and genotype markers with the aim of determining the source of the alimentary contamination.


METHODS
Nine strains of Staphylococcus aureus isolated in 6 food manipulators and 3 patients were studied with the following markers: biotype, antibiotype, phagotype, plasmid profile, polymorphism of the size of the restriction fragments of total DNA and ribotype.


RESULTS
Epidemiologic study of the strains analyzed showed that both the phenotype markers and the plasmid profile are thecniques of little discriminatory value. The only clearly discriminatory technique used was ribotyping which defined 3 clones in the 9 strains of Staphylococcus aureus studied.


CONCLUSIONS
Molecular study of isolated strains of Staphylococcus aureus was able to identify the causal origin of the alimentary toxiinfection in one of the 6 food manipulators studied.
Montserrat
I
I
Servicio de Microbiología, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Barcelona.
March
F
F
de Simón
M
M
Llovet
T
T
Ferrer
M D
MD
Coll
P
P
Prats
G
G
D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D006801:Humans; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D013202:Staphylococcal Food Poisoning / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics
Aplicación de las técnicas de epidemiología molecular en el estudio de una toxiinfección alimentaria por Staphylococcus aureus.