INTRODUCTION: Staphylococcal species are pathogens that are responsible for outbreaks of foodborne diseases.The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of enterotoxin-genes and the antimicrobial resistance profile in staphylococcus coagulase-negative (CoNS) and coagulasepositive (CoPS) isolates from black pudding in southern Brazil.METHODS: Two hundred typical and atypical colonies from Baird-Parker agar were inoculated on mannitol salt agar.
Eighty-two mannitol-positive staphylococci were submitted to conventional biochemical tests and antimicrobial susceptibility profiling.The here presence of coagulase (coa) and enterotoxin (se) genes was investigated by polymerase chain reaction.RESULTS: The isolates were divided into 2 groups: 75.
6% (62/82) were CoNS and 24.4% (20/82) were CoPS.The biochemical tests identified 9 species, of which Staphylococcus saprophyticus (37.
8%) and Staphylococcus carnosus (15.9%) were the most prevalent.Antimicrobial susceptibility tests showed resistance phenotypes to antibiotics widely administered in humans, such as gentamicin, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, and erythromycin.
The coa gene was detected in 19.5% (16/82) of the strains and 4 polymorphic DNA fragments were observed.Five CoNS isolates carrying the coa gene were submitted for 16S rRNA sequencing and 3 showed similarity with CoNS.
Forty strains were positive for at least 1 enterotoxin-encoding gene, the genes most frequently detected were sea (28.6%) and seb (27.5%).
CONCLUSIONS: The presence of antimicrobial resistant and enterotoxin-encoding genes in staphylococci isolates from black pudding indicated that this fermented food may represent a potential health risk, since staphylococci present in food could cause keychron m4 foodborne diseases or be a possible route for the transfer of antimicrobial resistance to humans.