Surveillance of Staphylococcus aureus in cheese produced in Hokkaido.
Although the number of cheese manufacturing units in Hokkaido had increased every year and exceeds 60, many of these units are small-scale processors. We examined the cheese produced in Hokkaido for the presence of Staphylococcus aureus for 3 years after 2002. During the study period, S. aureus was isolated from 38 cheese samples: 3.6 to 9.2% of the total cheese samples examined and 13.0 to 20.0% of the total mozzarella-type cheese samples. The largest population of S. aureus was 2.0 x 10(4) CFU/g. The isolated S. aureus strains were subjected to PCR analysis to look for seven se genes. Of the 38 isolates, 20 did not possess the se gene, but the remaining 13 isolates had seg and sei genes. No enterotoxins were detected in the cheese samples analyzed with a commercial kit.
Ikeda
Tetsuya
T
Hokkaido Institute of Public Health, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0819, Japan. ikeda@mbk.nifty.com
Morimoto
Yo
Y
Makino
Sou-Ichi
S
Yamaguchi
Keiji
K
D002611:Cheese / Q000382:microbiology*; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D004768:Enterotoxins / Q000302:isolation & purification; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D005516:Food Microbiology; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D015995:Prevalence; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000302:isolation & purification*
D004768:Enterotoxins