Detection of enterotoxin a (Sea) gene in Staphylococcus aureus isolated from raw meat samples

Staphylococcus aureus is widely known both as a frequent commensal and as an opportunistic pathogen of a variety of animal species including humans. It is a major cause of food borne illness and various types of foods are incriminated in staphylococcal food poisoning including meat and meat products. The present study was carried out to assess the occurrence of S. aureus in raw meat samples and also to detect the presence of Staphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA), which has been documented in earlier studies as the most common SE involved in staphylococcus-related food poisoning. For the study, a total of 309 meat samples were collected which included chicken, pork, chevon and beef samples. Staphylococcus species could be isolated from 166 (53.72%) samples while only 65 (21.03%) were found to be coagulase-positive. On the basis of biochemical tests and PCR detection of nuc (Thermonuclease) gene, 61 out of the 65 coagulase positive isolates were confirmed as S. aureus, of which 33 were from chicken, 12 from pork, 11 from chevon and 5 from beef samples. Further, only 2 (3.27%) out of the 61 S. aureus isolates were found to possess the sea gene.