Prevalence and distribuion of staphylococcal enterotoxin genes among Staphylococcus aureus isolates from chicken and turkey carcasses in Algeria

Abstract

This study is aimed to determine the prevalence of staphylococcus aureus(S.aureus) by biochemical tests in poultry carcasses. It is also intend to detect the distributionof genes for classical staphylococcal enterotoxins A, B, C, D and E (sea, seb, sec, sedand see) and for gene femA, specific for S.aureusspecies, using multiplex PCR.A total of 385 samples of neck skins from fresh poultry carcasses were collected during the period 2012-2013 from 16 different slaughterhouses located in the region of Algiers, Algeria. The overall prevalence of S.aureusin freshly slaughtered poultry carcasses was 41.56%, with an individual prevalence of 40.63% and 45.71% for chicken and turkey respectively. From the 95 strains of S.aureusidentified by biochemical tests, 82 (86.32%) isolates were femA positive using multiplex PCR. The investigation has also revealed the presence of both enterotoxins B and D, with a predominance of seb(13.33%) followed by sed(1.67%), in the chicken carcasses while in turkey only sedwas detected (4.55%) It has been found that strains of S.aureusof poultry origin can be enterotoxigenic with the predominance of genes encoding for enterotoxins seb in chicken and sedin turkey. As enterotoxins can be produced in adequate amounts to induce foodborne illnesses, these potential dangers must be considered in terms of a real risk to public health.