title: Staphylococcus aureus and its food poisoning toxins: characterization and outbreak investigation.
abstract: Staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) is one of the most common food-borne diseases and results from the ingestion of staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) preformed in food by enterotoxigenic strains of Staphylococcus aureus. To date, more than 20 SEs have been described: SEA to SElV. All of them have superantigenic activity whereas half of them have been proved to be emetic, representing a potential hazard for consumers. This review, divided into four parts, will focus on the following: (1) the worldwide story of SFP outbreaks, (2) the characteristics and behaviour of S. aureus in food environment, (3) the toxinogenic conditions and characteristics of SEs, and (4) SFP outbreaks including symptomatology, occurrence in the European Union and currently available methods used to characterize staphylococcal outbreaks.
authors.affiliation: French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (Anses), Food Safety Laboratory of Maisons-Alfort, European Union Reference Laboratory for Coagulase Positive Staphylococci, Maisons-Alfort, France. jacques-antoine.hennekinne@anses.fr
authors.forename: Jacques-Antoine
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Hennekinne
authors.forename: Marie-Laure
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: De Buyser
authors.forename: Sylviane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dragacci
mesh_terms: D001427:Bacterial Toxins / Q000378:metabolism*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D013202:Staphylococcal Food Poisoning / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D001427:Bacterial Toxins