Real-time PCR Detection of Foodborne Pathogenic Staphylococcus aureus

Real-time PCR Detection of Foodborne Pathogenic Staphylococcus aureusfrom B. Stessl and M. Wagner writing in Real-Time PCR in Food Science: Current Technology and Applications:The real incidence of Staphylococcus aureus the ethological cause of staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) is unknown due to underreported cases and the misinterpretation of symptoms (vomiting, diarrhoea) also caused by other agents as B. cereus and Norovirus. Conventional microbiological methods recommended by EU regulation 2073 are time-consuming and often lead to false negative results as viable S. aureus cells are not detectable but still a higher amount of heat-stable enterotoxins was produced. In the last years several multiplex PCR detection methods targeting staphylococcal enterotoxin coding genes have been described as complementation to direct enterotoxin detection by Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA). To gain a better insight in the enterotoxin gene status of samples quantitative real-time PCR assays have been developed. The lack of qPCR in distinguishing live and dead bacteria could be neglected as an unexpected S. aureus food poisoning outbreak causes more economic loss as a restrained food lot. Further reading: Real-Time PCR in Food Science: Current Technology and Applications
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