title: Molecular characterization of foodborne-associated Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated in Shijiazhuang, China, from 2010 to 2012.
abstract: Staphylococcus aureus is an opportunistic pathogen commonly identified from food poisoning-associated foodstuffs. From 1996 to the present, S. aureus isolates have been found to exhibit increasing resistance to antimicrobial drugs. The aim of this study was to assess the molecular epidemiology properties of various S. aureus isolates through molecular typing and to investigate their characterization based on their production of enterotoxins and hemolysins and their resistance to antibiotics. A total of 78 coagulase-positive staphylococcal strains isolated from food or clinical samples were analyzed. Eight VNTR loci were used to genotype the 78 isolates, and this analysis resulted in 39 different multilocus variable number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) profiles. The isolates recovered from a single outbreak exhibited the same MLVA profile. According to CLSI, 97.4% of the isolates were resistant to penicillin, whereas only 3.8% were methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains. Through multiplex PCR, 87.2% of the isolates were shown to be enterotoxigenic (SEs), and the most common genes present were sea, sem, seg, seu, and sek. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the prevalence of staphylococcal enterotoxins, the contents of virulent factors, and the characteristics of β-lactam antibiotic resistance in 78 S. aureus isolates. These findings emphasize the need to prevent the presence of S. aureus strains and SE production in foods. Our results also demonstrate that MLVA is a useful and powerful method for epidemiological studies of S. aureus. In contrast to multilocus sequence typing, the MLVA method is a simpler and more rapid method for epidemiological typing with a higher discriminatory power.
authors.affiliation: College of Life Science, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang 050000, China; Shijiazhuang Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shijiazhuang 050000, China.
authors.forename: GuoPing
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lv
authors.affiliation: Shijiazhuang Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shijiazhuang 050000, China.
authors.forename: BaoHong
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Shijiazhuang Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shijiazhuang 050000, China.
authors.forename: PeiNan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Shijiazhuang Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shijiazhuang 050000, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Shijiazhuang Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shijiazhuang 050000, China.
authors.forename: HongYing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Shijiazhuang Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shijiazhuang 050000, China.
authors.forename: Chuan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Shijiazhuang Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shijiazhuang 050000, China. Electronic address: qinliyun-2007@163.com.
authors.forename: LiYun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: College of Life Science, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang 050000, China. Electronic address: Zhaobaohua@hebtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: BaoHua
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D004768:Enterotoxins / Q000235:genetics; D005516:Food Microbiology; D005517:Foodborne Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology*; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D058889:Molecular Typing; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004768:Enterotoxins
keywords: Antimicrobial susceptibility; Enterotoxin gene; MLST; MLVA; Staphylococcus aureus