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...

Genes encoding staphylococcal enterotoxins (sea to see, seg, and seh), toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (tst), and exfoliative toxins (eta and etb) were not detected in a large panel of 48 Staphylococcus sciuri group isolates tested. This strongly suggests that production of the staphylococcal exotoxins by these bacteria is highly unlikely.

Heat-labile enterotoxins from Escherichia coli strains of human and porcine origins had identical subunit composition, arrangement, and size in sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Immunological differences recently described by others were shown to reside exclusively in the B subunits.

Production of staphylococcal enterotoxins B and C was completely inhibited by concentrations of cerulenin (4 mug/ml and 2 mug/ml, respectively) that did not affect either growth rate or final growth density. Type A toxin formation was not similarly inhibited.