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Comprehensive analysis of classical and newly described staphylococcal superantigenic toxin genes in Staphylococcus aureus isolates.

Omoe K, Hu DL, Takahashi-Omoe H, Nakane A, Shinagawa K

Department of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Agriculture, Iwate University, Ueda 3-18-8, Morioka, Iwate 020-8550, Japan. omo@iwate-u.ac.jp

We describe a comprehensive detection system for 18 kinds of classical and newly described staphylococcal superantigenic toxin genes using four sets of multiplex PCR. Superantigenic toxin genotyping of Staphylococcus aureus for 69 food poisoning isolates and 97 healthy human nasal swab isolates revealed 32 superantigenic toxin genotypes and showed that many S. aureus isolates harbored multiple toxin genes. Analysis of the relationship between toxin genotypes and toxin genes encoding profiles of mobile genetic elements suggests its possible role in determining superantigenic toxin genotypes in S. aureus as combinations of toxin gene-encoding mobile genetic elements.

Published 18 May 2005 in FEMS Microbiol Lett, 246(2): 191-8.
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