Novel Method for Rapid Detection of Staphylococcus Aureus and Its Enterotoxins in Patients with Diarrhea

摘要

Staphylococcus aureus is one of the main causes of food poisoning, and its virulence is determined by the synthesis of enterotoxins. Therefore, the objective of the current work was to establish a technology for a rapid, sensitive, and specific detection of S. aureus enterotoxins in readily available samples, such as feces of infected patients. Fecal samples were collected from 60 patients affected by diarrhea admitted to the Guangzhou Hospital (Guangdong Province, China). Following fecal genomic DNA extraction protocol based on magnetic nanoparticles separation, the material was analyzed by conventional and real-time PCR for the presence of 5 enterotoxin genes, sea, seb, sec, sed, and see. Among the 60 S. aureus strains, 46 (76.7%) were demonstrated to harbor at least one of these genes by both conventional and real-time PCR. Two strains carried simultaneously 3 genes, and 22 strains carried simultaneously 2 genes. The accumulated results indicate that the novel method for the detection of S. aureus and its enterotoxins in patients with diarrhea is rapid, cost-effective, specific, and accurate. Moreover, the data point to a high virulence of S. aureus strains in patients reporting to the Guangzhou Hospital.