The foods that most frequently cause this type of poisoning are red meat and poultry and their products ( 1, 14, 25, 39). aureus is the most common cause of food-borne human illness throughout the world ( 9, 27).

Staphylococcus aureus is a significant cause of avian disease and may thus contaminate foods as a result of processed carcasses ( 30). The thermal process used during their manufacture can limit staphylococcal contamination but cannot eliminate preformed toxins. aureus in the retail breaded chicken products analyzed is a potential health risk for consumers since the pH and a w values of these kinds of products are favorable for S. The presence of the staphylococci and, in particular, of S.

aureus cells, but the preformed SEA remained active during product storage at 4☌. The heat treatment employed in the manufacture determined the inactivation of S. aureus in a laboratory-scale preparation of precooked breaded chicken cutlets. Hence, we evaluated the thermal resistance of two strains of SEA-producing S. Moreover, all the strains were negative in PCR assays targeting staphylococcal enterotoxin genes ( seA to seE, seG to seJ, and seM to seO), as well as the toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 gene, and no SEA was detected in the retail breaded chicken samples analyzed by a reversed passive latex agglutination assay or by Western blotting.

As demonstrated by phenotypic and molecular characterization, in spite of the high percentage of coagulase-positive Staphylococcus strains, only three strains could be referred to the species S. The levels of contamination in the products analyzed were quite low, although the pH values and water activities (a w) in the samples considered were in ranges favorable for S. In this study we examined the presence of Staphylococcus aureus and staphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA) in 20 industrial breaded chicken products obtained from different retail butchers and supermarket stores in Italy.

Mulab 7 skins