PCR detection of Staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) N, O, P, Q, R, U, and survey of SE types in Staphylococcus aureus isolates from food-poisoning cases in Taiwan

Staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) are superantigenic toxins. They are five major classical types, i.e., SEA, SEB, SEC, SED, SEE, and new SEs or SE-like superantigens, such as SEG to SEU. Only the staphylococcal superantigens (SAgs) that induce emesis following oral administration in a monkey model are designated as SEs while other related toxins are called SE-like (SEl) superantigens. To survey the enterotoxin genotypes for S. aureus strains isolated from food-poisoning cases in Taiwan, we developed PCR primers specific for SEN, SEO, SEP, SEQ, SER, and SEU genes. The complete SE sequences and their expression potential for strains positive to sen, seo, sep, seq, ser, and seu specific primers were also determined. These strains were used as reference strains. With the PCR primers specific for all SEs or SAgs, including toxic shock syndrome toxin I (TSST-1), we assayed the genotypes of 147 S. aureus strains isolated from patients associated with staphylococcal food-poisoning outbreaks occurred during 2001–2003. For these147 strains, 135 (91.8%) were found positive for one or more SE or SAg genes. For classical enterotoxin and TSST-1 types, the major one was tsst-1 (59.1%) following by sea (29.2%), seb (19.7%), sec (6.8%), and sed (2.0%). For new SE and SAg types, the major one was sei (29.9%) and sep (27.9%) followed by, sek (16.3%), seo (14.3%), seu (14.2%), sem (11.6%), sen (10.9%), seq (10.9%), seh (8.2%), sel (6.8%), and ser (5.4%) etc. This report reveals the whole SE and SAg genotypes for S. aureus strains isolated from staphylococcal food-poisoning cases in Taiwan.