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Phenotypic and genotypic (pulsed-field gel electrophoresis) characteristics of enterotoxin-A-producing Staphylococcus
1Département de Recherche en Bactériologie Médicale, Faculté de Médecine Alexis Carrel, Lyon, France.
Abstract:
The phenotypic (antibiotype, serotype, phagetype) and genotypic (SmaI restriction patterns using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis) characters of 162 Staphylococcus aureus epidemiologically unrelated strains were studied. Eighty-two of the isolates produced enterotoxin-A (SEA+), while 80 produced none (SEA-). None of the phenotypic characters observed were characteristic of SEA+ strains. On the other hand, the electrophoretic profiles revealed a non-random distribution of the SEA+ strains (p < 0.01 in groups PI and PIII, and p < 0.03 in group PII). It can therefore reasonably be assumed that the enterotoxin-A-producing strains did not constitute a single clone, but rather, seemed to belong to strains derived from at least three clones with distinct genetic organization.