title: Strain Discrimination of Staphylococcus aureus Using Superantigen Profiles.
abstract: Staphylococcus aureus is one of the major bacterial species that may cause clinical infection and food-poisoning cases. Strains of this species may produce a series of superantigens (SAgs). Due to the importance of staphylococcal infections, reliable methods for the discrimination of strains of this species are important. Such data may allow us to trace the infection origins and be used for epidemiological study. For strain discrimination, genotyping methods, such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST), etc., could be used. Recently, toxin gene profiles, which can be used for the elucidation of the genetic and pathogenic relatedness between strains, also have been used to improve the strain discrimination. For S. aureus, as more SAg genes were discovered, the SAg profiles become more useful for the strain discrimination of S. aureus. In this chapter, a method for the discrimination of S. aureus strains using superantigen profiles will be described in detail.
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science and Technology, Hung Kuang University, Shalu, Taichung, 43302, Taiwan. hytsen36@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Hau-Yang
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Tsen
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science and Biotechnology, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, 402, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Sheng-Chih
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science and Technology, Hung Kuang University, Shalu, Taichung, 43302, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Yu-Cheng
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Chiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science and Biotechnology, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, 402, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Shuo-Wen
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Tsai
mesh_terms: D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D006801:Humans; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D018089:Superantigens / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D018089:Superantigens
keywords: Genotyping; Staphylococcal enterotoxins; Staphylococcus aureus; Strain discrimination; Superantigen profiles