Occurrence of enterotoxigenic strains of Staphylococcus aureus in raw poultry meat

The aim of this work was to determine the contamination of raw poultry meat with enterotoxigenic strains of S. aureus, using the PCR method. PCR is a rapid and sensitive method, which can show the presence in food of enterotoxigenic strains of S. aureus on the basis of specific gene sequences and detect the potential source of contamination before enterotoxins are produced. No coagulase-positive staphylococci strains were found in 65 samples of chicken parts, but these bacteria were present in 11 of 23 examined samples of minced turkey meat (48%). Using the primers for enterotoxin genes A to C, 4 of the 11 isolated S. aureus strains showed a positive result in the PCR. Three of the isolates represented the SEB gene and remaining one the SEC gene. The results obtained showed that PCR is sensitive and rapid method which may be used for detection and identification of enterotoxigenic S. aureus.