Identification and typing of food-borne Staphylococcus aureus by PCR-based techniques.

Abstract The possibility of using PCR for rapid identification of food-borne Staphylococcus aureus isolates was evaluated as an alternative to the API-Staph system. A total of 158 strains, 15 S. aureus , 12 other staphylococcal species, and 131 isolates recovered from 164 food samples were studied. They were phenotypically characterized by API-Staph profiles and tested for PCR amplification with specific primers directed to thermonuclease ( nuc ) and enterotoxin ( sea to see ) genes. Disagreement between the PCR results and API-Staph identification was further assessed by the analysis of randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) profiles obtained with three universal primers (M13, T3, and T…