The ability of 135 Staphylococcus strains isolated from Spanish dry-cured hams to produce enterotoxins in culture was investigated by the reversed passive latex agglutination method. A high percentage of enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus strains (85.9%) was recorded, and 54.3% of these produced enterotoxin A. One of the two Staphylococcus epidermidis strains produced enterotoxin C. The reve...

For detection of cholera enterotoxin activity, suckling hamster, mouse, and rat models were compared. It was found that not only suckling mice but also suckling rats and hamsters were sensitive to cholera enterotoxin. Among these models, suckling hamsters were the most sensitive and gave positive results with about 1/100 the cholera toxin seen in suckling mice and rats.

Ninety-three Bacteroides fragilis isolates from different geographic locations were analyzed for the presence of an enterotoxin-encoding gene. It was shown that blood culture isolates were more likely to carry this gene than strains from other sources. All enterotoxin-positive strains belonged to the PCR fingerprint group I.

A chromatofocusing procedure for the purification of staphylococcal enterotoxin D was developed. The purification included the removal of the toxic protein from culture supernatant fluids of Staphylococcus aureus 1151m by batch adsorption with CG-50 resin, chromatofocusing on Polybuffer Exchanger 94, and gel permeation chromatography on Sephacryl S-200. The purity of the staphylococcal enteroto...

Heat-stable enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli was identified by nucleotide hybridization with RNA transcripts of the gene encoding heat-stable A-2 enterotoxin. Radiolabeled enterotoxin gene RNA transcripts are easier to prepare and avoid the preparation of cloned DNA probes that can be nonspecific if they contain cloning vector DNA.

The development of a microtiter solid-phase radioimmunoassay for the detection of Vibrio cholerae enterotoxin and heat-labile Escherichia coli enterotoxin is described. The test is based on the immunological similarity between V. cholerae toxin and E. coli heat-labile toxin. The assay is easy to perform, quantitative, and at least as sensitive and specific as the Y-1 adrenal cell system.

We demonstrated that both the A and B subunits of heat-labile enterotoxin from Escherichia coli are located in the periplasm. The toxin was shown to form aggregates in Tris-EDTA buffers which are routinely used for isolating membranes. The aggregates pellet upon centrifugation, and this may explain why several previous investigators have concluded that enterotoxin is associated with membranes.

Enterotoxin A production in milk was studied by use of variables of milk quality, initial numbers of enterotoxigenic staphylococci, incubation temperature, and time. In both raw and pasteurized milks having a low total viable count, enterotoxin was detected in minimal incubation times of 6 to 9 hr at 35 C, 9 to 12 hr at 30 C, 18 hr at 25 C, and 36 hr at 20 C, after inoculation with 10(6)Staphyl...

A new diagnostic reagent was developed that is capable of detecting the presence of Clostridium perfringens rapidly and accurately compared to the conventional methods. C. perfringens enterotoxin (cpe) gene is the gene of interest since it encodes the enterotoxin responsible for food poisoning. Two new cpe-specific labeled DNA probes were evaluated using Southern and dot blot hybridization. Bac...

The aim of this study was to investigate the antimicrobial resistance profiles of and the enterotoxin gene distribution in 4 strains of Staphylococcus aureus (S10-2, S10-3, S12-2, and S13-2) isolated from 90 bulgogi samples. The S. aureus enterotoxin H gene (seh) was found in all the strains, while the S. aureus enterotoxin A gene (sea) was found only in 3 of the 4 strains. The S10-2 strain exp...