Molecular analysis of Staphylococcus aureus isolates associated with staphylococcal food poisoning in South Korea.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the molecular epidemiological study of Staphylococcus aureus from staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) incidents in South Korea.


RESULTS
Three hundred and thirty-two strains isolated from ten provinces between June 1999 and January 2002 were characterized by staphylococcal enterotoxin genes, toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (tst) gene, and exfoliative toxin genes. Toxin genotypes were sea-seh (n=197), sea (n=51), sea-seg-sei (n=14), seg-sei (n=10), seb (n=10), seb-sed-seg-sei-sej (n=3), sea-seg-seh-sei (n=1), sea-seb (n=1), sea-sec (n=1), seg-sei plus eta (n=4), and sea-seg-sei plus tst (n=40). Most of the strains could be classified into three clusters of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) types A and B with coagulase type VII and type E with coagulase type IV. Of the ten sequence types (ST), ST1, ST59, and ST30 were frequently showed by multilocus sequence typing.


CONCLUSIONS
The strain belonging to PFGE pattern A with sea-seh gene, coagulase VII, and ST1 was the most epidemic clone of SFP incidents in Korea.
Cha
J O
JO
Department of Microbiology, National Institute of Health, Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Lee
J K
JK
Jung
Y H
YH
Yoo
J I
JI
Park
Y K
YK
Kim
B S
BS
Lee
Y S
YS
D003030:Coagulase / Q000032:analysis; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D004768:Enterotoxins / Q000032:analysis; D005516:Food Microbiology; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D006801:Humans; D007106:Immune Sera / Q000032:analysis; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D013202:Staphylococcal Food Poisoning / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics*
D003030:Coagulase; D004768:Enterotoxins; D007106:Immune Sera; C019368:enterotoxin D, Staphylococcal; C026066:enterotoxin A, Staphylococcal; C031818:enterotoxin B, staphylococcal; C034959:enterotoxin C, staphylococcal