METHODS COMPARISON FOR ENTEROTOXIC STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS CHARACTERIZATION

The aim of this study was to compare two different methods for enterotoxic Staphylococcus aureus characterization. 110 S.aureus strains was isolated from foods and tested with ELISA method able to detect toxins type A to E in culture medium and PCR protocols able to detect the presence of genes (sea to see; seg to sej; sep; ser) encoding for staphylococcal enterotoxins. 27 strains came out positive with ELISA; 68 resulted to have at least one encoding gene. sea and ser genes were detected respectively in 29,1% and 27,3% of strains