Distribution of enterotoxin genes among carriage- and infection-associated isolates of Staphylococcus aureus

To compare the distribution of genes encoding classical and newly described enterotoxins among Staphylococcus aureus, associated with carriage and infection.

Forty-five nasal isolates from carriers and 42 clinical isolates were included. The genes sea to see and seg to sei as well as sem, sen, seo and seu were tested using multiplex and conventional PCR. The most frequently found toxin genes were egc-related genes, in particular the combination seg and sei (n = 55, 63.1%), followed by sen and seu (n = 54, 62.1%), sem (n = 51, 58.6%) and seo (n = 48, 55.2%). Significant differences were found for seg and sei combination (33 of the nasal vs 22 of the infection isolates, P = 0.048) as well as for the genes sem (P = 0.004), sen (P = 0.029) and seo (P = 0.032). Regarding the classical toxin genes no significant differences between the two groups of isolates were found.

Significant differences between infection and carriage strains were found only for the egc-related genes, which were more common in the nasal isolates.

The egc-related enterotoxin genes seem to be more prevalent in carriage- than in infection-associated S. aureus isolates. The possible contribution of egc-related genes in determining the potential for nasal carriage requires further investigation.